Perception of nasal pungency in smokers and nonsmokers

Abstract

Two experiments explored the difference in common chemical sensitivity between smokers and nonsmokers. The first experiment confirmed and extended our previous finding that smokers have a higher threshold than nonsmokers for a short-latency, reflex transitory apnea in response to a nasal irritant (carbon dioxide). The experiment revealed that even short periods of smoking (6-10 min) just before the measurement will further impair the smoker's sensitivity to an irritant. Application of the novel scaling technique magnitude matching, whereby persons judged the perceived magnitude of various levels of an irritant, odorant, and tone in the same session, implied that smokers actually perceive irritation less keenly than nonsmokers. The psychophysical functions for pungency in the two groups suggested that the insensitivity may arise from conductive factors (e.g., thickening of the mucus barrier) rather than from neural factors. The results of the scaling and those for the threshold for transitory apnea showed excellent quantitative agreement and indicated that the threshold for the reflex occurred at a criterion level of perceived pungency.

Gender differences in the perception of pungency

“…Figure 1 shows the stimulus-response (psychophysical) functions for the nasal pungency of CO 2 in males and females. The results can be reasonably described by power functions though they show a characteristic upward concavity at low concentrations [6,10]. The exponent (slope in the log-log coordinates of Fig.…”

“…Another investigation [14] confirmed this gender difference and extended it to male and female smokers. It seemed an interesting possibility to test whether this physiological difference could be confirmed psychophysically at the suprathreshold level, particularly since the reflex data have fallen into register with psychophysical data in a couple of other studies [10,11]. Since our interest was centered in gender differences, we decided to test only nonsmokers, avoiding any blurring of the outcome resulting from different smoking patterns in the group of subjects.…”

“…At this point, it seems worthwhile mentioning that all those data involve testing of the olfactory sense mainly, more so when working at the threshold or near threshold levels of the stimuli employed, and it has previously been suggested that the free nerve endings that mediate common chemical sensitivity might have a different pharmacological reactivity than olfactory receptors [10].…”

“…A couple of previous studies [10,14] showed that cigarette smokers of both sexes were less sensitive than a comparable population of nonsmokers to the stinging sensation evoked in the nose by CO 2 . This difference was seen both physiologically, in the threshold concentration of CO 2 necessary to elicit a reflex, transitory interruption of inhalation, and psychophysically, in magnitude matching.…”

Chemesthesis from volatile organic compounds: Psychophysical and neural responses

“…Unlike olfaction, which compresses output relative to input, chemesthesis expands it [4][5][6][7]. Over a span hardly more than an order of magnitude, chemesthetic sensation may go from barely detectable to painful irritation.…”