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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2012

Olfactory responses: attraction or avoidance of food odours in the first two years of life?

Résumé

Olfaction is a salient sensory modality early in life. Neonates show keen olfactory sensitivity and hedonic responsiveness. However, little is known on how olfactory responses develop over the first two years, especially in term of hedonics. Besides, olfaction plays an important role in the perception and appreciation of foods. Here, we aim to assess hedonic reactivity to food odours in the first two years of life in the context of a longitudinal study on the development of food preferences (OPALINE). Olfactory tests were conducted on 235 participants at 8, 12, 22 months. Scented and unscented bottles were presented successively and sequentially to them. The stimuli consisted in 8 odorants, representing 4 disliked (fish, cabbage, green vegetable, rancid butter) and 4 liked foods (peach/apricot, apple, strawberry, vanilla). Pleasantness of the stimuli was checked by a panel of adults. All tests were videotaped to analyse the following exploration behaviours toward both types of objects: ‘no handling’ defined as ‘no physical contact’ and ‘mouthing’ defined as ‘direct contact with perioral and/or perinasal areas’. The duration of each behavioural item was recorded and divided by accessibility duration to provide proportions from which indexes were calculated according to Beauchamp and Moran (1982) and Schwartz et al. (2009). For the 3 age groups, the results indicated: 1/ longer average duration of ‘no handling’ of the bottles with unpleasant odours compared to the bottles with pleasant odours; 2/ shorter average duration of ‘mouthing’ for the bottles with unpleasant odours than for the bottles with pleasant odours; 3/ and some significant correlations across ages occurred for both variables mostly for unpleasant odours. These data confirm that toddlers do discriminate the hedonic valence of odours from the age of 8 months. The avoidance of food odour seems precocious whereas attraction does not.
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Dates et versions

hal-02808155 , version 1 (06-06-2020)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-02808155 , version 1
  • PRODINRA : 188298

Citer

Sandra Wagner, Sylvie Issanchou, Claire Chabanet, Benoist Schaal, Luc Marlier, et al.. Olfactory responses: attraction or avoidance of food odours in the first two years of life?. Workshop OPALINE: Understanding the early development of food preferences and eating behaviour in children, Oct 2012, Dijon, France. ⟨hal-02808155⟩
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