Short Note Odor Identification by Name and by Edibility: Life-Span Development and Safety
研究从儿童到老年人对17种日常用品气味的识别能力，发现命名能力随年龄呈倒U型曲线，而通过可食用性判断的准确率远高于命名，且加香漂白剂会降低对危险品的辨别能力。
The study explored how subjects from childhood (8-14 years old) to elderly adulthood could identify the odors of 17 everyday products. Performance at naming followed an inverted U-shaped course over age, best in young adults and poorest in children and elderly. A discrimination task given to the adults revealed parallel age-related declines in ability to name and to discriminate odors. Correct identification by edibility exceeded that by name considerably. For dangerous household products, children achieved only 15% correct naming but 79% correct edibility/inedibility. Scenting of dangerous household products, however, may compromise the discriminability of these products from less harmful ones. "Fresh"-scented hypochlorite bleach yielded significantly more errors regarding its possible causticity than did unscented bleach. Such modifications of products would seem to necessitate other compensatory changes to enhance discriminability and thereby maintain safety.