Odor identification by name and by edibility: life-span development and safety

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.