Developmental Switch From Elemental to Configural Processing of Odor Mixtures in Humans

Abstract

Human perceptual abilities evolve throughout development, particularly with regard to processing complex stimuli. While many studies have investigated age-related changes in olfactory sensitivity, none have examined how developmental stages influence the perception of odor mixtures at the elemental and configural levels. In this study, we evaluated how children, teenagers, and adults (mean ages: 10, 15, and 39 years) perceive odor mixtures known to trigger either elemental or configural processing in adults. Two binary mixtures (AB and AB′) and two senary mixtures (RC and RC′), known to elicit distinct perceptual strategies in adults, were evaluated using three tasks: typicality rating, target detection, and complexity evaluation. Results showed that perception of the senary mixtures remained consistent across age groups, indicating stable processing of these complex mixtures. In contrast, age-related differences emerged for the binary mixtures. Children perceived AB as less complex than AB′, but did not rate it as more typical of the configural odor, whereas adults rated AB as more typical of this odor than AB′ and tended to show reduced access to mixture components in binary mixtures, with teenagers displaying an intermediate profile. Overall, these findings suggest developmental changes in odor mixture processing, consistent with a progressive shift from more elemental to more configural olfactory strategies, particularly for mixtures of lower chemical complexity.