|
|
Factors contributing to interindividual differences in olfactory abilities and odour awareness
Nováková, Lenka ; Havlíček, Jan (advisor) ; Lukavský, Jiří (referee) ; Vodička, Jan (referee)
The main body of the thesis deals with selected factors underlying the considerable variability in human olfactory abilities and some odour awareness-related measures, addressed in samples ranging in age from middle childhood to young adulthood. The thesis consists of two parts. The first part (Chapter 1), first presents the major advances and developments that brought about something of a renaissance of scientific interest in the human sense of smell, including the recent proliferation of psychophysical studies, both basic research and clinical. Next, an outline of olfactory psychophysical measures and related olfactory abilities that are of relevance to the studies presented in this thesis is provided. Subsequently, the selected factors contributing to interindividual differences in olfactory abilities, that have been addressed by this thesis, are reviewed, namely the effect of sex (or gender), which is approached from a developmental perspective, childhood gender nonconformity, and personality. Finally, intraindividual fluctuations in olfactory performance are also mentioned in brief. Next, the focus shifts to odour awareness by first introducing the various approaches that can be adopted to get closer to the real-life context as opposed to laboratory setting (where most olfactory studies continue to be...
|
|
|
Factors contributing to interindividual differences in olfactory abilities and odour awareness
Nováková, Lenka ; Havlíček, Jan (advisor) ; Lukavský, Jiří (referee) ; Vodička, Jan (referee)
The main body of the thesis deals with selected factors underlying the considerable variability in human olfactory abilities and some odour awareness-related measures, addressed in samples ranging in age from middle childhood to young adulthood. The thesis consists of two parts. The first part (Chapter 1), first presents the major advances and developments that brought about something of a renaissance of scientific interest in the human sense of smell, including the recent proliferation of psychophysical studies, both basic research and clinical. Next, an outline of olfactory psychophysical measures and related olfactory abilities that are of relevance to the studies presented in this thesis is provided. Subsequently, the selected factors contributing to interindividual differences in olfactory abilities, that have been addressed by this thesis, are reviewed, namely the effect of sex (or gender), which is approached from a developmental perspective, childhood gender nonconformity, and personality. Finally, intraindividual fluctuations in olfactory performance are also mentioned in brief. Next, the focus shifts to odour awareness by first introducing the various approaches that can be adopted to get closer to the real-life context as opposed to laboratory setting (where most olfactory studies continue to be...
|
|
|
Heart Rate Response in Newborns to Relatively Strong and Mild Trigeminal Odorants
Boušová, Jiřina ; Martinec Nováková, Lenka (advisor) ; Brothánková, Pavlína (referee)
The widely accepted view nowadays is that experiencing odours as rather pleasant or unpleasant is, to a certain degree, shaped on a daily basis through individual experience within one's culture via evaluative conditioning or, rather marginally so, via mere exposure to that certain odour. In other words, humans are not born with any fixed set of olfactory likes or dislikes but rather, they acquire them throughout their lifetime. However, olfactory sensation is not a "pure" percept, as odorant stimuli generally elicit a qualitative percept of an odorant - generated mainly by the olfactory nerve - as well as some degree of chemesthesis - a tactile confound of the odour generated mainly by the trigeminal nerve. The olfactory and trigeminal system exhibit complex interactions at both the peripheral and central level of chemosensory processing, which is also reflected in perceptual characteristics of the final percept, including perceived pleasantness (hedonics). If the olfactory contribution alone does not easily predict neonatal odour hedonics, due to newborns' limited previous exposure to chemosensory inputs, one may hypothesize that together with the strength of the trigeminal contribution they may form a significant factor affecting neonatal appetitive/aversive responses to odours. In the present...
|
guest ::
