IRRITATION AND ODOR FROM FORMALDEHYDE: CHAMBER STUDIES.

Subjects seated in an environmental chamber judged the perceived irritation and odor of formaldehyde during exposures to concentrations ranging from 0. 25 to 2. 0 ppm. Prominent characteristics of the sensations included growth of irritation with time for the lower concentrations and decay for the highest. This pattern proved true across the three sites of irritation (eye, nose, throat). These sites also proved roughly equivalent in sensitivity. The time-course of irritation suggested the operation of coincident processes of potentiation and adaptation. When described in terms of two multiplicative exponential processes, the rate of potentiation was faster than the rate of adaptation by about an order of magnitude.