Abstract: Retronasal aroma perception, an important sensory experience during food oral processing, has a significant impact on the consumers’ sensory enjoyment, acceptability and behavioral characteristics. This work reviews the effects of genetic variations and dietary cultural differences on aroma recognition and perception, the effects of fundamental food properties and physiological parameters of oral processing on retronasal aroma perception during food oral processing, and the important roles of nasal airflow and nasal physiology in aroma diffusion from the oral to retronasal cavity, and it also summarizes the analytical methods for retronasal aroma detection and dynamic sensory evaluation of aroma perception. There are cross-modal interactions between retronasal aroma perception and multiple senses including taste and oral texture perceptions. Therefore, clarifying the mechanisms of retronasal aroma perception has great significance for food formulation design and targeted modulation of flavor perception during food oral processing.

Key words: retronasal aroma perception; food oral processing; nasal airflow; on-line analytical methods; dynamic sensory evaluation