On the principle of odor interaction

Abstract The present study was designed to explore the principle of odor interaction for two malodorous organic sulphides mixed at various levels of perceived intensity. The two odorants were chosen to be qualitatively similar, and mixtures of the two should produce a homogeneous percept of odor quality. Both the odor components and the mixtures were measured with regard to subjective intensity. A two-step scaling method involving cross-modality matching and numerical scaling of the matching continuum was used. The perceived intensities of the mixtures were found to be directly proportional to the arithmetic sum of the perceived intensities of the components constituting the mixture. The results were also discussed in terms of the power law.

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