Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM)

The graph above shows the mean detection threshold to all three odorants, subdivided by male and female subjects expressed in dilution step. The higher dilution steps are more diluted than the lower dilution steps. ie 5 is more diluted than 4 and 5 is thereby harder to detect. There was a significant gender difference in the detection threshold for Bourgeonal. Males on average detected Bourgeonal when it was more diluted compared to females. Thus i found that males were more sensitive to Bourgeonal compared to females. No gender difference was found for the other two odorants. I also converted the mean dilution step threshold to the number of molecules of the odorant in the gas phase at that threshold. The number of molecules in the gas phase at the mean detection threshold for females was 1.6 times higher than the number of molecules at the detection threshold for males, for Bourgeonal.