ENVIRONMENTAL TOBACCO SMOKE: SENSORY REACTIONS OF OCCUPANTS.

Occupants sat in a thermally-neutral environmental chamber for 2 h at a time and rated the following sensory attributes: magnitude of eye irritation and its acceptability, throat irritation and its acceptability, nose irritaton and its acceptability, odor and its acceptability, and overall acceptability. Smoking rate was tailored to acheive environmentally realistic levels of carbon monoxide, 2 ppm or 5 ppm above ambient background. Although the 22-ppm condition caused significant irritation above baseline, dissatisfaction among the occupants averaged only about 10%. The 5-ppm condition caused steadily increasing irritation and dissatisfaction in excess of 20% over time. Electrostatic precipitation of the particulate matter diminished the magnitude of irritation and odor consistently, though not dramatically. It had a less consistent effect on dissatisfaction. The degree of dissatisfaction aroused from environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) correlates very strongly with perceived intensity of irritation or odor, with overall dissatisfaction deriving almost exclusively from whichever channel (eyes, throat, etc. ) is most severely affected.