Biomedical subjects

H N Schifferstein

Publications and source records attributed to H N Schifferstein.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1997

Perceptual and imaginary mixtures in chemosensation.

D. Algom and W.S. Cain (1991) reported similar interaction patterns for perceived and imaginary mixtures of odorants. However, their experimental design did not allow sensitive statistical testing to demonstrate differences between conditions. Three experiments on 16 mixtures of sucrose-citric acid mixtures yielded significantly different interaction pattern for perceived and imaginary mixtures. Inconsistencies in the degrees of suppression in the imaginary condition suggested that participants did not base their responses on the inspection of a mental image but on incomplete implicit or explicit knowledge of sensory interactions. Participants knew the phenomenon of mixture suppression and knew that its effects were level dependent, but they were unable to predict the exact intensity of a mixture on the basis of the intensities of its unmixed components.

Citric Acid↗

PubMed1997

Sequence effects in hedonic judgments of taste stimuli.

Sequential dependencies in taste research may be different from those obtained in other modalities, due to the long interstimulus intervals and the intermediate rinses. In two experiments, subjects judged the pleasantness of 50 aqueous solutions on 150-mm line scales. During data analyses pseudo-sequence effects arose, because data were aggregated over individuals and because the first trials of the experimental sessions deviated from the rest. After correcting for the pseudo-sequence effects, robust regression analyses revealed small but significant sequential dependencies. The current response deviation was positively related to previous response deviations and negatively related to previous subjective, internal representations.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

The role of congruency and pleasantness in odor-induced taste enhancement.

Although odorants and tastants are perceived by two different senses, the rated intensity of a tastant may increase if an odorant is added. The size of the odor-induced taste enhancement is said to depend on the perceptual similarity between the tastant and the odorant, and on the task instruction which affects subjects' working concepts of attribute categories. It is investigated whether congruency or pleasantness (halo-effects) can replace perceptual similarity in accounting for odor-induced taste enhancement. Sweetness intensity, pleasantness, and degree of congruency are determined for three sucrose/odorant combinations. Odor-induced enhancement is found only for congruent mixtures (sucrose/strawberry and sucrose/lemon). In addition, highly congruent mixtures are more pleasant than expected under additivity. The pleasantness judgments for incongruent combinations (sucrose/ham) follow a subtractive rule. The congruency ratings can account for a significant part of the pleasantness ratings, but not for the degree of sweetness enhancement. Also, the pleasantness ratings are not related to the degree of enhancement. Therefore, congruency or pleasantness ratings cannot replace similarity ratings in accounting for odor-induced taste enhancement.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

An Equiratio Mixture Model for non-additive components: a case study for aspartame/acesulfame-K mixtures.

The Equiratio Mixture Model predicts the psychophysical function for an equiratio mixture type on the basis of the psychophysical functions for the unmixed components. The model reliably estimates the sweetness of mixtures of sugars and sugar-alcohols, but is unable to predict intensity for aspartame/sucrose mixtures. In this paper, the sweetness of aspartame/acesulfame-K mixtures in aqueous and acidic solutions is investigated. These two intensive sweeteners probably do not comply with the model's original assumption of sensory dependency among components. However, they reveal how the Equiratio Mixture Model could be modified to describe and predict mixture functions for non-additive substances. To predict equiratio functions for all similar tasting substances, a new Equiratio Mixture Model should yield accurate predictions for components eliciting similar intensities at widely differing concentration levels, and for substances exhibiting hypo- or hyperadditivity. In addition, it should be able to correct violations of Stevens's power law. These three problems are resolved in a model that uses equi-intense units as the measure of physical concentration. An interaction index in the formula for the constant accounts for the degree of interaction between mixture components. Deviations from the power law are corrected by a nonlinear response output transformation, assuming a two-stage model of psychophysical judgment.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

An empirical test of Olsson's interaction model using mixtures of tastants.

In 1994, Olsson published a model predicting the intensity and quality of an odor mixture percept on the basis of the intensities of the unmixed components. Whether this model can also be used for mixtures of dissimilar tasting substances was investigated for sucrose/citric acid mixtures. The identification data revealed asymmetrical mixture suppression, which does not support the model. The intensity responses were in accordance with the definitions employed for level independence and hypo-additivity. However, the intensity judgements suggest deviations from symmetry and exhibited compromise, which violates two other principles. A comparison with previously published data shows that these violations probably occur for other mixture types, too. It is concluded that the Olsson interaction model cannot describe interactions in mixtures of dissimilar tasting components accurately.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

Determinants of cumulative successive contrast in saltiness intensity judgments.

When all stimuli elicit the same taste quality, solutions preceded by a high concentration level are judged to be significantly less intense than solutions preceded by a low concentration level. After repetitious stimulation with a different tasting stimulus, the intensity of the present stimulus is over-estimated. This phenomenon is called "successive contrast." In the present study, the cumulative effects of three identical stimuli on the saltiness ratings for a test stimulus are investigated. The preceding stimuli are manipulated with regard to taste quality, saltiness intensity, total taste intensity, and complexity. Whether the size of the cumulative contrast effect is associated with the degree of dissimilarity between preceding stimuli and test stimulus, or with the saltiness or total taste intensity of the preceding stimuli, is investigated. The size of the contrast effect depends on the type of preceding stimulus, its intensity, and the type of test stimulus. No association was found with judgments of the degree of dissimilarity between the preceding stimuli and the test stimulus. For nonsalty preceding stimuli, the contrast effects are independent of concentration level. When the preceding stimuli taste at least partly salty, the total intensity appears to determine the size of the contrast for an unmixed salty test stimulus.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1995

Prediction of sweetness intensity for equiratio aspartame/sucrose mixtures.

The Equiratio Mixture Model predicts the responses to a series of equiratio mixtures on the basis of the psychophysical functions for the unmixed components. The model predicts the sweetness of mixtures of sugars and sugar-alcohols successfully, but is unable to predict mixture intensity for substances with different dynamic ranges. In this paper, the equi-intensity concept is introduced in the Equiratio Mixture Model by transforming the physical concentrations expressed in molarity into units that produce approximately equi-intense sensations. An empirical test using aspartame/sucrose mixtures shows that the modified Equiratio Mixture Model yields good predictions of mixture intensities.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

Contextual effects in difference judgments.

Manipulating stimulus spacing, stimulus frequency, or stimulus range usually affects intensity judgments. In six experiments, I investigated the locus of analogues of these contextual effects in a "difference" estimation task. When all stimuli elicited the same taste quality, stimulus distribution affected the scale values only when water was included in the stimulus set (Experiments 1-3). When the subjective ranges of two taste qualities were manipulated, different scale values were obtained for the separate qualities in the two conditions (Experiment 4). Manipulation of the expected response distribution did not affect the scale values or the responses (Experiments 5-6). It is concluded that shifts in stimulus distributions or stimulus ranges result in shifts in subjective scale values. The contextual effects can be interpreted as relative shifts of a number of gustatory continua, with water lying on a separate continuum. Proposed is a model for context-dependent judgments, consisting of four stages: stimulus classification, stimulus placement, continuum placement, and continuum projection.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

Perceptual interactions in mixtures containing bitter tasting substances.

Mixtures of Quinine HCl and NaCl elicit heterogeneous taste percepts. Each such percept consists of a bitter and a salt sensation. Using functional measurement in combination with a two-stimulus procedures, it was found that the NaCl suppresses the QHCl bitterness and that QHCl has almost no suppressive effect on NaCl saltiness. In addition, it was shown that the total intensity of the mixture percept is almost identical to the sum of the intensities of the bitterness and saltiness sensations-within-the-percept. As was found in earlier experiments with mixtures of other tastants, central sensory integration within a heterogeneous percept seems to be a fairly simple additive process.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

Contextual effects in the perception of quinine HCl/NaCl mixtures.

Stimulus distribution, stimulus spacing and stimulus range affect mean intensity ratings of solutions of unmixed tastants. The present study compares contextual effects for mixture ratings with those for unmixed stimuli: if ratings for mixed and unmixed stimuli are differentially affected by context, the degree of mixture suppression inferred from the responses is context-dependent. Bitterness intensity ratings for unmixed quinine and quinine HCl/NaCl mixtures were not differentially affected by shifts in stimulus frequency distribution. The subjects' tendency to be consistent in their responses to identical stimuli, results in a transfer of stimulus context of previous sessions to the next.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1994

Sweetness suppression in fructose/citric acid mixtures: a study of contextual effects.

Two experiments investigated whether stimulus context affects ratings for mixtures of dissimilartasting substances (fructose/citric acid) to the same degree that it affects ratings for unmixed substances (fructose). In Experiment 1, replacing mixtures by equisweet unmixed fructose solutions produced virtually no response shifts. The proportion of mixtures in the stimulus set affected only slightly the degree of mixture suppression inferred from the responses. In Experiment 2, both the stimulus type (mixed or unmixed) and the stimulus distribution (positively versus negatively skewed) affected the responses. Several factors that determine the impact of contextual changes are identified: (a) the stage in stimulus processing affected--that of representation on the internal continuum or that of response selection; (b) the size and sources of variation in the affected process; and (c) the degree to which a stimulus is perceptually integrated in the context. In the present study, the sweetness of fructose/citric acid mixtures was largely, but not completely, integrated with the sweetness of unmixed fructose solutions. It is suggested that increased stimulus complexity makes mixture ratings more susceptible to contextual shifts. An analysis relating the size of the contextual shift to the degree of response variability suggests that response-selection processes are more important in determining the responses for unmixed stimuli than they are in determining the responses for mixtures.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1993

Perceptual integration in heterogeneous taste percepts.

When mixtures of dissimilar tasting compounds are perceived, specific taste sensations are integrated into a percept. Four models are evaluated that were designed to predict the total taste intensity of a mixture percept from the total taste intensities of the unmixed components or from the specific taste intensities of the components within the mixture percept. The predictions of the two dominant component models are inferior to those made by the two other models. Predictions made by the vector summation model are accurate, but the model contains theoretical weaknesses that make it an invalid psychological integration model. The sum of sensations model predicts total intensity with an accuracy similar to the vector summation model, but it is more parsimonious. Furthermore, it can account for all of the empirical phenomena observed.

Citrates↗

PubMed1993

Both perceptual and conceptual factors influence taste-odor and taste-taste interactions.

Observers are often asked to make intensity judgments for a sensory attribute of a stimulus that is embedded in a background of "irrelevant" stimulus dimensions. Under some circumstances, these background dimensions of the stimulus can influence intensity judgments for the target attribute. For example, judgments of sweetness can be influenced by the other taste or odor qualities of a solution (Frank & Byram, 1988; Kamen et al., 1961). Experiments 1 and 2 assessed the influence of stimulus context, instructional set, and reference stimuli on cross-quality interactions in mixtures of chemosensory stimuli. Experiment 1 demonstrated that odor-induced changes in sweetness judgments were dramatically influenced when subjects rated multiple attributes of the stimulus as compared with when they judged sweetness alone. Several odorants enhanced sweetness when sweetness alone was judged, while sweetness was suppressed for these same stimuli when total-intensity ratings were broken down into ratings for the sweetness, saltiness, sourness, bitterness, and fruitiness of each solution. Experiment 2 demonstrated a similar pattern of results when bitterness was the target taste. In addition, Experiment 2 showed that the instructional effects applied to both taste-odor and taste-taste mixtures. It was concluded that the taste enhancement and suppression observed for taste-odor and taste-taste mixtures are influenced by (1) instructional sets which influence subjects' concepts of attribute categories, and (2) the perceptual similarities among the quality dimensions of the stimulus.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Sweetness does not habituate during a sip-and-spit experiment.

In gravitational flow studies, the estimated saltiness of a NaCl/sucrose mixture increases after repetitive stimulations with sucrose. This increment is hypothesized to be the consequence of successive contrast and suppression release. According to the successive contrast hypothesis, the saltiness of the mixture percept is overestimated because its salty taste stands out against the preceding sweet tastes. The release of saltiness from suppression is supposed to originate from habituation to sweet stimuli. In the present study, the saltiness of a NaCl/sucrose mixture was judged after repetitive stimulations with sucrose using a sip-and-spit procedure. The increment in saltiness estimates after repeated stimulations with sucrose could be fully accounted for by successive contrast. No suppression release was observed. Differences in experimental procedure (the degree of experimental control, the subjects' arousal level, the variation in the proximal stimuli, the area of the tongue stimulated, and the subjective intensities of the habituating stimuli) that may affect the rate of habituation, are suggested as potential sources of the differences between the gravitational flow studies and the present one.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1992

Contextual and sequential effects on judgments of sweetness intensity.

Presenting stimuli from skewed concentration distributions affects mean responses on category scales. However, if the number of categories on the response scale is increased, the degree of separation between the mean responses obtained for a positively as opposed to a negatively skewed concentration distribution diminishes. The present study investigates the effect of skewed concentration distributions upon ratings on a line scale and compares it to the context effect found for a 7-point category scale. In addition, sequential dependencies between consecutive stimuli and responses are investigated in order to assess their relevance in taste-intensity scaling studies. The context effects are similar for the 7-point category scale and for the line scale. The analyses of sequential effects show that both preceding responses and preceding stimuli affect current responses. However, since these two factors work in opposite directions, only a small contrast effect from the previous stimulus is significant in an overall analysis. The present study shows that even though the overall sequential effects between consecutive stimuli and responses are small, the effect of experimental context may be considerable. Since subjective context is established at the beginning of a session and sequential dependencies operate throughout the whole session, it is argued that contextual and sequential effects are only indirectly related.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

The effectiveness of different sweeteners in suppressing citric acid sourness.

The exact mechanism that causes taste suppression in a perceptually heterogeneous mixture, and the locus of that mechanism, are as yet unknown. The present study was designed to explore the idea that mixture suppression is a perceptual phenomenon and not the result of physical, chemical, or receptor-substance interactions. An investigation was carried out as to whether perceptually similar taste stimuli give rise to the same sensory interactions when mixed with a substance of a different taste quality. In the first study, five different sweeteners (sucrose, fructose, aspartame, saccharin, and sorbitol) were matched in perceived sweetness intensity, in order to obtain five perceptually similar stimuli. Every equisweet sweetener concentration was mixed with each of four citric acid concentrations. In a second study, the sourness-suppressing effects of two sweeteners, sucrose and aspartame, were compared at four different concentration levels. Sourness scale values of unmixed citric acid, the unmixed sweeteners, and the citric acid/sweetener mixtures were assessed with a functional measurement approach in combination with a two-stimulus procedure. The equisweet sweeteners were equally effective in suppressing the perceived sourness intensity of citric acid over the concentration range used. The side tastes of the sweeteners, if present, did not have a substantial effect on the degree of sourness suppression.

Adult↗