Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/210349

Title

A delivery system for olfactory stimuli

Author(s)

Palmer, Benjamin R.;  Stough, Con;  Patterson, John

Abstract

This paper describes the design of a new method for controlling and administering olfactory stimuli---namely, the hood system. The hood system involves a stream of vaporized odor (at known concentrations) mixed with odorless air and pumped (at a constant flow rate) into an oxygen therapy hood. It is designed to be used with odorants in solution, such as essential oils, as the olfactory stimulus. The use of oxygen therapy hoods allows for the precise control of a constant concentration of odorized air over time, while allowing subjects to breathe normally. The hood system provides a natural administration of olfactory stimuli and the exact determination of the stimulus concentration. The use of this system will allow experimental conditions to be completely defined and results and replication studies to be accurately interpreted. The hood system is portable, cost effective, and constructed from readily available components. It is proposed that the hood system could be adopted to suit a wide range of olfactory research, particularly that in which the effects of chronic exposure to olfactory stimuli on cognition are examined.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. School of Biophysical Sciences and Electrical Engineering

Source

Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, Vol. 31, no. 4 (Dec 1999), pp. 674-679

Publication year

1999

FOR Code(s)

0801 Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing;  1701 Psychology;  1702 Cognitive Sciences

Keyword(s)

Nebulisers;  Odour;  Vaporisers

Publisher

Springer

ISSN

0743-3808

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03200744

Copyright

Copyright © 1999 Psychonomic Society, Inc.

Peer reviewed