Smokers Ignorant

Upon the claims of cigaret makers that smokers know their favorite brands by taste, research from Reed Institute at Portland, Oregon, last week, cast doubt. P. Lorillard Tobacco Co. (Old Gold) in particular has been illustrating its extensive advertisements with photographs of famed persons choosing Old Golds while blindfolded from among other brands. Reed Institute laboratory tests by one Louis Goodman, graduate student, however, show that only once in nine times on the average does one recognize his favorite cigaret whether he is blindfolded or not.

They cannot differentiate between two cigarets nor between straight Turkish or domestic tobaccos. Sight apparently is necessary to recognize a specific cigaret. This checks with the fact that smoking in the dark is less pleasurable than in the light. However, it does not account for the actual distaste that the smoker of one brand has for another until several days' smoking makes him used to the new.

Reed Institute, comparatively little known east of the Rockies, was established 20 years ago. Its enrolment last year was 251, its faculty 32. Its endowment now is nearly $2,000,000.