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 irritation and its acceptability, odor and its acceptability, and overall acceptability. Without the knowledge of the judges, cigarette smoking began at one or another time during occupancy. Smoking rate was tailored to achieve environmentally realistic levels of carbon monoxide, 2 ppm or 5 ppm above ambient background. Although the 2-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 paniculate matter diminished the magnitude of irritation and odor consistently, though not dramatically. It had a less consistent effect on dissatisfaction. Blockage of the nose via a noseclip in order to eliminate odor cues had no effect on eye irritation and implied that previous assessments of eye irritation in the presence of the possible biasing cue of odor can be trusted. 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.