BRANGE EFFECTS IN HEDONIC EVALUATION OF OLFACTORY STIMULI

With the aim to explore range effects in psychophysical scaling of hedonic qualities initiallyin Single Stimulus Experiments 25 odours have been examined towards their placement ona Category anchored Visual Analogue Scale ranging from extremely pleasant to extremelyunpleasant. On the basis of the resulting rank-ordered set of odours 4 stimulus series werecompiled, each containing 13 stimuli. 3 series served as range-conditions, containing eitherthe 13 most pleasant, neutral or unpleasant stimuli, while a control series covered thewhole hedonic range. The stimulus series were each presented to 10 subjects to be evaluatedusing the same scale as in the Single Stimulus Experiments. In contrast to observationsin other sensory continua such as loudness or pitch, systematic influences of the stimulusranges on hedonic ratings were not found. The mere fact that odour stimuli are presentedin series, however, seem to influence the hedonic judgments