Publications by authors named "Pauline Fernandez"
Brain plasticity is essential for experts to acquire the abilities they need. Sommeliers are olfaction experts who display differences in olfactory regions in the brain that correlate with greater olfactory abilities. While most studies on this topic are cross-sectional, we used a longitudinal design and invited 17 sommelier students at the start and end of their training then to compare them to 17 control students to study the effects of training-related brain plasticity.
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- Humans can typically recognize only up to 4 odors in a mixture, making it challenging to identify multiple scents.
- A study tested the effects of a 5-day olfactory training on novices, comparing their performance to sommeliers and untrained individuals using various mixtures of odors.
- Results showed that while sommeliers excelled with up to 4 odors, trained novices matched their ability with single odors, but had difficulty with mixtures of 2 or more, indicating that training improves identification of single odors but expertise is needed for complex mixtures.