Temporal perception of sweetness by adults and children using computerized time-intensity measures

There is a general paucity of knowledge of the cognitive and perceptual abilities of children to successfully undertake chemosensory-related tasks. An example is that there are no reports of temporal perception by children in time-intensity tasks, or how their responses in these tasks compare with those of adults. The latter paradigm has the potential to reveal differences that may occur during a normal eating or drinking episode that cannot be detected with single response measures. To address this shortcoming, the present study uses a computerized time-intensity method to compare the responses of adults and 8- to 9-year-olds in several measures of sweetness with three different types of stimuli. The results show that the children gave higher estimates than adults of the maximum sweetness of sucrose in water, orange drink and custard and recorded shorter sweetness durations with orange drink and custard. Both age groups, however, responded similarly to changes in concentration and the volume of stimuli with all three sensory measures. Overall, the consistency of the data from the children and the variability, which was similar to that of the adults, indicate that the tasks involved in the time-intensity paradigm were within the cognitive ability of the children. Nevertheless, further studies are needed to determine the basis of the differences found.