Demystifying wine expertise: Olfactory threshold, perceptual skill and semantic memory in expert and novice wine judges

We investigated recognition and identification of wine-relevant odours as a function of domain-specific expertise. Eleven wine experts and 11 wine novices participated in tasks measuring olfactory threshold, odour recognition, odour identification, and consistency of odour naming. Twenty-four wine-r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chemical senses 2002-10, Vol.27 (8), p.747-755
Main Authors: PARR, Wendy V, HEATHERBELL, David, WHITE, K. Geoffrey
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
1-Butanol - pharmacology
Adaptation, Physiological
Adult
Biological and medical sciences
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Memory
Middle Aged
Odorants
Olfaction. Taste
Olfactory Receptor Neurons - physiology
Perception
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Sensory Thresholds
Smell
Wine - analysis
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Summary:We investigated recognition and identification of wine-relevant odours as a function of domain-specific expertise. Eleven wine experts and 11 wine novices participated in tasks measuring olfactory threshold, odour recognition, odour identification, and consistency of odour naming. Twenty-four wine-relevant odorants were sampled orthonasally by each participant in the semantic (identification; consistency of naming) and episodic (recognition) memory tasks. Results showed superior olfactory recognition by expert wine judges, despite their olfactory sensitivity and bias measures being similar to those of novices. Contrary to predictions based on reports of an association between odour memory and semantic processing, wine experts did not perform better than novices on the verbal memory tasks. Further, ability to recognize odours and ability to name odours were not positively correlated, although the novices' data showed a trend in this direction. The results imply that the source of superior odour recognition in wine experts was not enhanced semantic memory and linguistic capabilities for wine-relevant odours. One interpretation of the data is that wine experts were less susceptible than wine novices to verbal overshadowing. When forced to identify the odorants, experts' superior perceptual skills protected them from verbal interference, whereas novices' generated verbal representations of the odours were emphasized at the expense of the odorant itself. This has implications for training in wine-evaluation skills.
ISSN:0379-864X
1464-3553
1464-3553
DOI:10.1093/chemse/27.8.747