Comparison of flavour perception by smell and by mouth

The reported experiment was the first quantitative comparison of orthonasal with retronasal olfaction. Sugar-sweetened milk was being tasted each time that benzaldehyde was smelt, by either route. The "flavour perce[ived]", i.e. the aroma source named, was almond. The 50% detection of a disparity in strengths (the 'JND') did not differ reliably across the tested participants between sniff and swallow (with its 'coup de nez'). However the small number of data for each participant made for highly unreliable JNDs