Flavor-intensity perception: Effects of stimulus context

Abstract Stimulus context affects judgments of intensity of both gustatory and olfactory flavors, and the contextual effects are modality-specific. Does context also exert separate effects on the gustatory and olfactory components of flavor mixtures? To answer this question, in each of 4 experiments, subjects rated the perceived intensity of 16 mixtures constructed by combining 4 concentrations of the gustatory flavorant sucrose with 4 concentrations of the retronasal olfactory flavorant citral. In 1 contextual condition of each experiment, concentrations of sucrose were relatively high and those of citral low; in the other condition, the relative concentrations of sucrose and citral reversed. There were 2 main results: First, consistent with earlier findings, in 5 of the 8 conditions, the ratings were consistent with linear addition of perceived sucrose and citral; departures from additivity appeared, however, in 3 conditions where the relative concentrations of citral were high. Second, changes in context produced contrast (adaptation-like changes) in perceived intensity: The contribution to perceived intensity of a given concentration of a flavorant was smaller when the contextual concentrations of that flavorant were high rather than low. A notable exception was the absence of contextual effects on the perceived intensity of near-threshold citral. These findings suggest that the contextual effects may arise separately in the gustatory and olfactory channels, prior to the integration of perceived flavor intensity.