Mental imagery has been used successfully in sensorimotor training, but rarely to improve sensory skills. Novices, undergraduate enology students (intermediates) and wine experts were asked to repeatedly imagine the visual images or smells of odorant sources presented in picture form. Olfactory abilities, odor sensitivity and identification performance were compared before and after mental training to check the differential effects of the two types of sensory training. We demonstrated that, like repeated objective odorant stimulations, repeated imagination of odors was able to enhance olfactory performance in objective perception. Both odor detection and identification abilities were improved. However, according to our results: (1) the effect was odorant specific; and (2) the impact of training on identification was restricted to wine experts. In addition, interestingly, the experts' olfactory identification performance apparently deteriorated following specific visual attention during the training phase. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONSOne extremely important aspect of sensory evaluation is training panelists to achieve consistent results. The results demonstrated the effectiveness of olfactory mental imagery as training strategy. The findings demonstrated that olfactory mental imagery was able to modify olfactory capabilities of wine professionals, with results comparable to those obtained using perceptual training. Consequently, olfactory mental imagery is an excellent tool for training the olfactory capacities of panelists, and may be extended to perfumers, flavorists and tasting panelists with a view to improving product quality control, without material stimulus such as chemical supports.

Background and Aims The ability to identify odours is important in wine tasting. Contradictory results have emerged from studies comparing the olfactory identification ability of experts and novices. The aim of this study is to extend the characterisation of olfactory capacity of wine professionals and to discuss the effect of practice and training on odour identification. Methods and Results We used an original method to explore odour identification as a function of a semantic and perceptual task: visual images of odour sources, forced‐choice olfactory identification and response time measurements. The performance of 39 wine experts and 41 novices was compared. The experts were more accurate than novices in olfactory identification; however, their response time was significantly longer. Conclusions As a part of their expertise, wine professionals acquire a better capacity for identifying wine defects or everyday odorants. Significance of the Study Experts apply a more complex cognitive process than novices when confronted with olfactory identification tasks. The mechanisms by which experts acquire their superior skill probably involve memory and olfactory mental representations, but their precise nature remains unclear.

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