Proportion of odorants impacts the configural versus elemental perception of a binary blending mixture in newborn...

Processing of odor mixtures by neonates is weakly understood. Previous studies showed that a binary mixture of ethyl isobutyrate/ethyl maltol (odorants A/B) blends in newborn rabbits at the 30/70 ratio: Pups would perceive a configural odor in addition to the components' odors. Here, we investigated whether the emergence of this additional odor in AB is determined by specific ratio(s) of A and B. To that goal, we tested whether pups discriminated between AB mixtures with lower (A(-)B, 8/92 ratio) or higher (A(+)B, 68/32) proportion of A. In Experiment 1, pups conditioned to A (or B) responded to A(-)B and A(+)B but not to AB. In Experiment 2, pups responded to A(-)B after learning of A(-) (and to A(+)B after learning of A(+)) but not to AB. In Experiment 3, after conditioning to A(-)B pups responded to A(-) and B (and to A(+) and B after learning of A(+)B) but not or less to AB. In Experiment 4, pups responded to A(-)B and A(+)B after conditioning to AB. These results confirm the configural perception of certain odor mixtures by young organisms and reveal that the proportion of components is a key factor influencing their coding, recognition, and discrimination of complex stimuli.