That would smack of discrimination.
Previous studies have shown that odor enrichment in the housing environment and flavors included in food during shipping of mice affect olfactory discrimination [4] and flavor preferences [32], respectively.
A fiber of medium polarity (for flavors) was used to avoid discrimination towards very non-polar and polar volatile compounds.
The rats learned this discrimination, consuming more of each flavor in the context in which it had previously been reinforced.
The rich network of afferent projections and messenger-specific transduction mechanisms are considered for both systems, as well as the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in facilitating the convergence of sensory information for the discrimination of scents, odors, and flavor.
This procedure did not affect the ability of the context to control intake of flavor X. Experiment 3 used a biconditional discrimination procedure (A: X+, Y−; B: X−, Y+; where X and Y were different flavors) in which no single context or flavor predicted reinforcement.
Experiments 1 and 2 used a simple Pavlovian discrimination procedure (A: X+, B: X−) and tested consumption of flavor X in each context.
Collecting enough data about each subject would allow flavor companies to filter out some of the inconsistencies, but after about 40 flavor samples, subjects tend to suffer "smell fatigue," and their discriminations become unreliable.
