Introduction
Every living organism needs information for the maintenance of its
life and species. To gather this information animals, including
humans, possess senses. By means of these senses they can communicate
with their environment. With the senses of smell and taste the animal
world communicates via chemicals. Chemical communication plays an
important role in locating food, in inter-individual relations
(social and sexual) and in detecting danger. With the chemical senses
one may assume that a chemical substance (or mixture) interacts with
a biological system resulting in a response. Human olfaction concerns
the odor perception by human beings.
Conclusion
Our senses of smell and taste are chemical senses, which means
chemicals trigger them. During human olfaction, one can study
detection, quality, intensity and preference of natural isolates and
chemical molecules. For the detection of odorants, threshold values
are determined in various media. Thousands of threshold values were
studied from published data. Wide ranges of threshold values have
been found for the same products. Threshold values are important for
the calculation of the aroma value of chemical constituents in
flavors. A scheme for the quantification of odor aspects of aroma
chemicals has been proposed. Why? Because there exists confusion
about odor descriptions and qualifications, due to the fact that
human beings have not learned how to smell or taste in a more
sophisticate way, and because personal psychological aspects of
subjects (mentioned before) cannot be controlled. Odor intensity and
appreciation studies can be used for the determination of the
olfactive-value-for-money of aroma chemicals.
[ See for the full article: Perfumer & Flavorist, Volume 27, Number 4, July/August 2002. ]
Reprinted by Leffingwell & Associates, 2006, with Permission