Odor Quality: Semantically Generated Multidimensional Profiles Are Stable

Dravnieks, Andrew

doi:10.1126/science.7134974

Cited by 128 publications

(103 citation statements)

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“…Here, rather than moving from chemistry to perception, we went from perception to chemistry and probed a large set of physicochemical descriptors using an unbiased statistical approach. In this, we have followed in the footsteps of Schiffman (1974Schiffman ( , 1977, Amoore (1963), Dravnieks (1982Dravnieks ( , 1984Dravnieks ( , 1985, and others, that together laid the groundwork for this approach between the early 1950s to late 1970s (Amoore, 1963;Laffort and Dravnieks, 1973;Schiffman, 1974). In this respect, the contribution of the current work is in observing that the perception of pleasantness corresponded to a physicochemical axis that was the best single discriminator of molecules that have a smell.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…To reduce the dimensionality of perceptual descriptors obtained previously by Dravnieks (1982Dravnieks ( , 1985 and of physicochemical descriptors obtained using Dragon software (Talete, Milan, Italy), we used the principal component (PC) function in the Statistics Toolbox of Matlab (Mathworks, Natick, MA). In brief, principal component analysis (PCA) takes a data set consisting of N points in an M-dimensional space [for example, 160 odorants in the 146-dimensional odor descriptor space, in the case of the Dravnieks' (1982Dravnieks' ( , 1985 data] and finds a rotation matrix which rotates the N points onto a new M-dimensional space with certain special properties. These are (1) that the new dimensions are orthogonal and (2) that the new dimensions, called principal components (e.g., PC1, PC2, .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The descriptors clearly weighted on the first PC of perception in accordance with their pleasantness. E, We randomly selected 21 odorants tested previously by Dravnieks (1982Dravnieks ( , 1985 (acetyl pyridine, benzaldehyde, amyl acetate, camphor dl, celeriax, citral, dimethyl pyrrole2,5, eugenol, heptanal, hexanoic acid, hexanol1, hexanol3, indole, methyl-iso-borneol2, methyl quinolinepara, octanol1, octenol-1-3-OL,phenylethanol,skatole,vanillin)andhad22subjectsrateallodorantsusingthreescaleswithVASextremesof"notatallflowery" versus "extremely flowery," "not at all sweet" versus "extremely sweet," and "extremely unpleasant" versus "extremely pleasant." The order of VAS scales was counterbalanced.…”

Section: Identifying the Primary Dimension Of Physicochemical Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The stimulus space is made of odorants, relatively small molecules (Ohloff, 1986) that can be described by a large number of physicochemical descriptors. Verbal descriptors for a large number of odorants have been reliably obtained, revealing considerable agreement in several aspects of olfactory perception (Dravnieks, 1982(Dravnieks, , 1985, and physicochemical descriptors can be mined and computed (Tetko et al, 2005) from structures available in chemical databases (e.g., PubChem). Thus, we sought to construct a perceptual space from verbal descriptors, an analogous physicochemical space from chemical descriptors, and then test for any systematic relation between these two spaces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Predicting Odor Pleasantness from Odorant Structure: Pleasantness as a Reflection of the Physical World

Khan

Luk²,

Flinker³

et al. 2007

J. Neurosci.

329

282

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Although it is agreed that physicochemical features of molecules determine their perceived odor, the rules governing this relationship remain unknown. A significant obstacle to such understanding is the high dimensionality of features describing both percepts and molecules. We applied a statistical method to reduce dimensionality in both odor percepts and physicochemical descriptors for a large set of molecules. We found that the primary axis of perception was odor pleasantness, and critically, that the primary axis of physicochemical properties reflected the primary axis of olfactory perception. This allowed us to predict the pleasantness of novel molecules by their physicochemical properties alone. Olfactory perception is strongly shaped by experience and learning. However, our findings suggest that olfactory pleasantness is also partially innate, corresponding to a natural axis of maximal discriminability among biologically relevant molecules.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Identifying the Primary Dimension Of Physicochemical Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Predicting Odor Pleasantness from Odorant Structure: Pleasantness as a Reflection of the Physical World

Khan

Luk²,

Flinker³

et al. 2007

J. Neurosci.

329

282

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Previous studies implied that gross olfactory perception is similar across individuals (25), and to test whether this was true here as well, we calculated the mean rating along each descriptor for each odorant, and then calculated the correlation of each individual with the mean. Note that here we are not comparing fingerprints, but rather ratings along specific descriptors; this revealed that individuals are indeed similar to each other in their gross perception.…”

Section: Olfactory Fingerprints Were Based On Matrices Of Perceived Omentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual olfactory perception reveals meaningful nonolfactory genetic information

Secundo

Snitz

Weissler

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Each person expresses a potentially unique subset of ∼400 different olfactory receptor subtypes. Given that the receptors we express partially determine the odors we smell, it follows that each person may have a unique nose; to capture this, we devised a sensitive test of olfactory perception we termed the "olfactory fingerprint." Olfactory fingerprints relied on matrices of perceived odorant similarity derived from descriptors applied to the odorants. We initially fingerprinted 89 individuals using 28 odors and 54 descriptors. We found that each person had a unique olfactory fingerprint (P < 10 −10 ), which was odor specific but descriptor independent. We could identify individuals from this pool using randomly selected sets of 7 odors and 11 descriptors alone. Extrapolating from this data, we determined that using 34 odors and 35 descriptors we could individually identify each of the 7 billion people on earth. Olfactory perception, however, fluctuates over time, calling into question our proposed perceptual readout of presumably stable genetic makeup. To test whether fingerprints remain informative despite this temporal fluctuation, building on the linkage between olfactory receptors and HLA, we hypothesized that olfactory perception may relate to HLA. We obtained olfactory fingerprints and HLA typing for 130 individuals, and found that olfactory fingerprint matching using only four odorants was significantly related to HLA matching (P < 10 −4 ), such that olfactory fingerprints can save 32% of HLA tests in a population screen (P < 10 −6 ). In conclusion, a precise measure of olfactory perception reveals meaningful nonolfactory genetic information.olfactory perception | HLA | MHC | olfactory genetics | autoimmunity H umans have superb olfactory discrimination (1, 2), likely reflecting the combined output of ∼400 different subtypes of olfactory receptors (3). Specific olfactory receptors are likely responsible for specific aspects of olfactory perception (4-7). Because any two individuals differ by ∼30% of their olfactory receptor subtype genome (8), this renders a potentially unique nose for each person (4, 9). If we could capture this uniqueness with a perceptual test, a sort of perceptual olfactory fingerprint, this should then be informative on the underlying individual olfactory receptor subtype genome. The notion of a psychophysical test informing on underlying genes is of course well known from vision, where color blindness charts inform us about genes coding for different opsins in the retina (10). In olfaction, specific anosmias can also point to alterations in a specific gene (4,11,12). Unlike in color vision or specific anosmias, the olfactory fingerprints we propose will likely not inform on a specific gene, but they may link overall perception to overall genetic makeup.Moreover, because the olfactory receptor genome is linked to various other genetic loci, this perceptual test may inform on genetic makeup beyond olfaction alone. For example, the olfactory receptor subtype genome is linked to MHC ge...

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Olfaction

Dalton¹

2002

Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology

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Within the past decade, substantial advances in our knowledge of the transduction, coding, and information‐processing of olfactory signals has occurred. These advances have been accompanied by significant developments from psychophysical and behavioral studies of olfactory processing that illustrate the importance of a multilevel approach for studying the olfactory system. This chapter focuses primarily on studies of human olfaction, beginning with a description of the anatomical basis for olfaction, followed by an examination of the fundamentals of sensory processing, descriptions of standard methods for studying olfaction, and an overview of basic results from psychophysical analyses of individuals with normal and impaired olfactory ability. Although the adoption of more sophisticated and reliable methods for studying olfaction appears to have reduced the extreme variability in sensitivity and response that has been historically observed, factors that contribute to individual variation in olfactory performance, such as gender, age, and exposure are also described. Finally, the role of olfaction in memory, affective processes, and higher‐level cognition is reviewed.

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Odor Quality: Semantically Generated Multidimensional Profiles Are Stable

Cited by 128 publications

References 6 publications

Predicting Odor Pleasantness from Odorant Structure: Pleasantness as a Reflection of the Physical World

Predicting Odor Pleasantness from Odorant Structure: Pleasantness as a Reflection of the Physical World

Individual olfactory perception reveals meaningful nonolfactory genetic information

Olfaction

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