Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol 61, Issue 2 436-439, Copyright © 1986 by American Physiological Society
Respiratory volume perception through the nose and mouth determined noninvasively
J. Fox, H. Kreisman, A. Colacone and N. Wolkove
The relative importance of the nose vs. the mouth in the perception of
respiratory volumes has never been assessed, nor have previous respiratory
perception studies been performed noninvasively. Using respiratory
inductive plethysmography, we monitored 12 normal subjects noninvasively
when breathing either exclusively through the nose or mouth. The sensation
of inspired volume mouth breathing was compared with that of nose breathing
over a wide range of the inspiratory capacity. The psychophysical
techniques of tidal volume duplication, tidal volume doubling, and
magnitude estimation were utilized. A just noticeable difference was
calculated from the constant error of the tidal volume duplication trials.
The exponents for magnitude estimation were 1.06 and 1.07 for nose and
mouth breathing, respectively. The other psychophysical techniques also
revealed no differences in nose and mouth volume perception. These results
suggest that tidal volume changes are perceived equally well through the
nose and mouth. Furthermore, the location of the receptors, important in
volume perception, is probably at a distal point common to the nose and
mouth.
