Study of Relationship between Aroma of Plant Essential Oils and Smell Sensational Images in Aroma Therapy

• Main Authors: Chieh-Jui Ghang, 張睿婕
• Other Authors: Wen-Liang Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/52185126373091961935

碩士 === 樹德科技大學 === 應用設計研究所 === 96 === Following the social improvement and the booming development of technology, and although the National Income and the Standard of Living have risen, the pressure of the citizens in every industry is increasing everyday relatively and pressures are everywhere. For example, pressures are from works, school, family and human relationships. The long term over accumulated pressure had caused physical tiredness and deteriorating health of the people, if these problems could not be effectively resolved or adjusted, the physical and mental conditions of each individual may be in danger. Not only has it affected the working performance of an individual, the human relationships, atmosphere at home and the quality of living, moreover, it might lead to daggering lives. Therefore, the popularity of natural curing methods such as: relaxing, recreation and healthy living became today’s hottest industries. Among the curing methods, ‘aromatherapy’ became a kind of natural curing method of a spiritual nursing that the public have considered in this environment. However, according to the current study of aromatherapy being held locally and abroad, they concentrate more on the essential oil composition and diseases as their medical discussion targets, and they didn’t widely investigate and research through the angle between the consumers and the aroma therapist, causing the knowledge of the consumers regarding the aroma feeling or its image, and the usage of essential oil by the aroma therapist to have a very different definition. Furthermore, due to the arrival of the [Consumer’s Sensibility Era], the psychological feeling of the consumers is not blinded anymore, but instead turned aggressively involve and understand. Therefore, how to relate the image of aroma through the consumers and turn to a special feature of essential oil to an aroma therapist became the important point of this research plan.There are four stages in the research flow and steps and they are compiling samples of essential oils and extracting aroma attributes, extracting smell sensation wording, establishing the relationship between aroma of essential oils and smell sensational images, and verifying the relationship between aroma of essential oils and the smell sensational images. Research results show that (1) a table of natural plant essential oils and aroma elements is established, which contains (a) the type of oil aroma: flowers, citrus, exotic feels, vanilla, spices, resin, and wood essence; (b) the smell sensation: stimulating, relaxing, and sedative; (c) level of aroma: high, medium, low; (d) five elements of essential oils: a total of 4 items and 18 categories in classifications of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth; (2) the natural plant essential oil aroma classification and the sensational image principle are established to practically utilizing research results to help aroma therapy care personnel with emotional management; (3) from the sensational language and the corresponding aroma element obtained through the Type I quantification method, we can see the weight of each aroma element in different language pairs; (4) the sensational image granted by the tested aroma element of essential oils is objective to a certain degree after being evaluated through a questionnaire and verified by the statistical test; (5) from the 10 types in the back-propagation neural network training, we see that (a) the training judgment error in Type III is 0.70 while the test judgment error is 0.86. The total error rate is 0.65% on average (accuracy 99.35%); (b) the training judgment error in Type VII is 0.70 while the test judgment error is 0.86. The total error rate is 0.60% on average (accuracy 99.405%); (c) the training judgment error in Type IX is 0.70 while the test judgment error is 0.86. The total error rate is 0.66% on average (accuracy 99.34%). In the future, with results of the back-propagation neural network VII training to forecast new essential oil aroma and sensational language value, e.g. verifying the back-propagation neural network having passed the training with essential oils imported from overseas, aroma therapy care personnel or natural essential oil manufacturers do not have to go through the questionnaire any more and can get the sensational language value from the back-propagation neural network training results, which simplifies experiential judgment in giving care; and (6) the decision support system concept is brought forth for management to enhance and improve efficiency in the decision-making process. The decision support system established to support an aroma therapy regimen will screen among all preferences the patient has toward essential oils all knowledge required for mental disease decision making. The feedback from the decision support system enables an aroma therapist to clearly know which care essential oil suits the patient the best and greatly enhance the professionalism and utilization of aroma therapy in our country, contributing to the increase in the competitiveness of aroma therapy.