Individual variability in the awareness of odors: demographic parameters and odor identification ability

Human chemosensation can be strongly influenced by how much attention people pay to chemosensory stimuli (e.g., Marks and Wheeler in Chem Senses 23:19–29, 1998; Prescott et al. in Chem Senses 29:331–340, 2004). In a recent study, a scale has been devised (i.e., the Odor Awareness Scale; OAS; see Smeets et al. in Chem Senses 33:725–734, 2008) to investigate the level of awareness people have of the available odorants in the environment. Here, we explored whether a variant (Italian version) of the OAS could be used to discriminate between different groups of participants in terms of olfactory abilities (i.e., performance in an odor identification task) and/or personal/demographic characteristics (e.g., gender, age, etc.). Ninety-eight participants underwent this study that was composed of a personal detail questionnaire, the OAS, and a deep investigation of odor identification ability based on a large variety of odor stimuli. During 6 testing sessions, a total of 72 odor stimuli were evaluated: 36 aromas in vapor phase presented in vials and 36 chemical compounds in hydroalcoholic solutions. The results did not indicate any relationships between the participants’ declared awareness of odors and the real performance in the identification test. However, differences in the awareness of odors were found as a function of a number of personal factors such as, for example, gender (with females showing higher scores than males) or age (with younger collecting lower scores than older participants). In conclusion, we could not predict from modified OAS scores the participants’ specific ability to identify odors. Nevertheless, we could extend the scale’s characterization by highlighting different connections between OAS scores and individual parameters.