Sommelier Students Display Superior Abilities to Identify but Not to Detect or Discriminate Odors Early in their Training

Abstract

Experts acquire superior abilities in their specific domains by training. Sommelier students, who are future olfaction experts, could be an excellent model to study the effects of olfactory training. We tested whether sommelier students display superior olfactory abilities early in their education: within the first 2 months of education, we examined the olfactory function, i.e., discrimination and identification of odors as well as olfactory threshold and olfactory memory, of n = 25 sommelier students and compared them to n = 29 control students. We also tested episodic and working memory. We found that sommelier students outperformed controls in free and cued identification, but we did not observe any difference in discrimination or threshold tasks. There was also no difference in memory tasks. Early in their education, sommelier students appear to be better at identifying odors, but do not display other superior olfactory abilities. Results suggest that sommeliers are better at identifying odors than the average person, either because they enter into training with superior identifications skills or are able to learn to identify odors at a very fast rate.