On the Colours of Odours

Abstract

Introduction In the present study, we explore the existence of cross-cultural differences in odour-colour correspondences between two European countries with geographic proximity and shared history: England and France. Moreover, we test whether a single chromatic arrangement can be used to represent an odour in both countries, even if the odour-colour association for this odour differed. Methods The responses of 59 British and 60 French participants to the same set of odorants were compared. In the second part of the study, the ability of 'chromatic cards' to represent odours was tested. Those chromatic cards are objective coloured arrangements generated by a new patented scientific tool developed at Lorraine University (patent FR no. 1255688). This tool is based on a neural network algorithm for colour forecasting. It generates a chromatic card that represents any odour from its chemical composition and sensory description. In this study, participants were presented with three cards obtained from an analysis of lavender, cucumber and peppermint odours. First, the participants had to name the odour evoked by each card. Next, they selected from amongst three different olfactory stimuli the one that best matched each card. Results and Discussion Significant colour characterisations were observed for each and every one of the odours tested in both populations. Moreover, both commonalities and differences were reported between the two populations in terms of the odour-colour associations that they exhibited. The chromatic representations evoked the appropriate odour percept and were significantly associated to their related odours in both of the populations. Conclusions These findings highlight the existence of common colour representations of odours amongst French and British participants, though some differences were also found. Despite these differences, we were able to validate the relevancy of using single chromatic arrangements in both countries in order to communicate odour information. The latter result may open up the way for a number of potentially important applications in the design and marketing of both food and non-food products.

Critical comparison of selected olfactometric methods for the determination of impact odorants. Proposal of a new representation of olfactometric results

“…Results obtained in this study are closed to the ones reported in literature, where panelists have smelt odorants[30][31][32][33][34][35][36] (Supplementary…”

“…31,33 The 24 color patches (including white, black and grey) were printed in a white A4 size page and labelled with a capital letter and a number (Figure 1). 31,33 The 24 color patches (including white, black and grey) were printed in a white A4 size page and labelled with a capital letter and a number (Figure 1).…”

“…29,30 In most of the studies on odor/color correlation, panelists are first asked to smell prior to attribute a color. [30][31][32][33][34][35][36] Nevertheless, it has been shown that color association to an odor is linked to the cerebral visualization of the object. 35 Indeed, visual information can affect sensorial results probably due to an association of the color to the verbalization of the odor during its learning.…”

“…The color chart was adapted from the one proposed by the team of ENSAIA (Nancy Lorraine University, France). 31,33 The 24 color patches (including white, black and grey) were printed in a white A4 size page and labelled with a capital letter and a number (Figure 1).…”

Multisensory Human-Food Interaction

“…There is also a growing awareness that cultural differences can influence the way in which people establish color-flavor associations (Shankar M.U. et al, 2010;Wan et al, 2014a,b;Jacquot et al, 2016;Wan et al, 2016).…”