ODOR IDENTIFICATION BY NAME AND BY EDIBILITY - LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT AND SAFETY

The study explored how subjects from childhood (8-14 year, old) to eld erly adulthood could identify the odors of 17 everyday products. Perfo rmance at naming followed an inverted U-shaped course over age, best i n young adults and poorest in children and elderly. A discrimination t ask given to the adults revealed parallel age-related declines in abil ity to name and to discriminate odors. Correct identification by edibi lity exceeded that by name considerably. For dangerous household produ cts, children achieved only 15% correct naming but 79% correct edibili ty/inedibility. Scenting of dangerous household products, however, may compromise the discriminability of these products from less harmful o nes. ''Fresh''-scented hypochlorite bleach yielded significantly more errors regarding its possible causticity than did unscented bleach. Su ch modifications of products would seem to necessitate other compensat ory changes to enhance discriminability and thereby maintain safety.