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A New Dirhinic Olfactory Stimulator

1947; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 60; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1417877

1939-8298

Dean Foster, Lynette Smith, E. H. Scofield,

Advanced Chemical Sensor Technologies

The ordinary flasks and bottles, frequently used as stimulators, are inadequate for precise and exact work. First and foremost, they fail to yield at different trials a stimulus of constant intensity. Their openings do not fit snugly against O's nostrils, hence free air, as well as air from the bottles, is drawn into O's nasal cavity when he inhales. As the leakage is uncontrolled and indeterminate, it is only by -sheer chance that the mixture reaching the olfactory organ is of the same intensity at different inhalations. An adequate stimulator should have a nose-piece that fits O's nostrils so snugly that there is no leakage when he inhales. When the stimulus-bottle is brought to O's nose, the liquid within it is involuntarily and inevitably shaken or agitated-and by different amounts at different trials. Since the percentage of volatile material in the air within the bottle-with which intensity of stimulus is correlatedwill vary with the amount that the bottle is shaken, it will again be a matter of chance if a given stimulus is of the same intensity at different trials. An adequate stimulator should avoid this source of error. The intensity of stimulation will also vary with the amount or size of O's inhalation. An adequate stimulator should equalize the amounts breathed in at different trials by the same or different O's. In addition to intensity, the experimenter in the olfactory field is also concerned with the constancy of quality. Contamination of his odors is a vexatious problem that is ever present. Odors, unlike stimuli of any other modality, cannot be presented and removed with knife-edge precision. They cling to and haunt the apparatus, O's nasal cavities, his clothes, the experimental rooms, etc., with distressing persistency. Not only do they linger, but, what is even more disturbing, they blend with one another and create new qualities which may be very different from