Real and Imagined Smellscapes

Abstract

The smellscape is the olfactory environment as perceived and understood, consisting of odours and scents from multiple smell sources. To what extent can audiovisual information evoke the smells of a real, complex, and multimodal environment? To investigate smellscape imagination, we compared results from two studies. In the first, onsite participants (N = 15) made a sensory walk through seven locations of an open-air market. In the second, online participants (N = 53) made a virtual walk through the same locations reproduced with audio and video recordings. Responses in the form of free-form verbal annotations, ratings with semantic scales, and a ‘smell wheel’, were analysed for environmental quality, smell source type and strength, and hedonic tone. The degree of association between real and imagined smellscapes was measured through canonical correlation analysis. Hedonic tone, as expressed through frequency counts of keywords in free-form annotations was significantly associated, suggesting that smell sources might generally be correctly inferred from audiovisual information, when such imagination is required. On the other hand, onsite ratings of olfactory quality were not significantly associated with online ratings of audiovisual reproductions, when participants were not specifically asked to imagine smells. We discuss findings in the light of cross-modal association, categorisation, and memory recall of smells.

The multisensory environmental evaluations of sound and odour in urban public open spaces

“…The specific on-site context will limit the scene, thus making the results more targeted. In addition, previous study has found that audio–visual information can also evoke specific smellscape imagination, and consequently the influence of imagination on multimodal perception should not be underestimated (Lindborg and Liew, 2021). The results of this study showed that the number of odour environment evaluation indicators affected by sound was less than the number of the sound environment evaluation indicators affected by odour and to a lesser extent, indicated that the influence of odour on sound perception was stronger than the influence of sound on odour perception.…”

Odor, Air Quality, and Well-Being: Understanding the Urban Smellscape Using Crowd-sourced Science, Monitoring, and Modeling

“…Such linkages of odor description and perceived sources are considered "typical" and have been attributed to ecological conditioning-the immediate and automatic tendency to associate a source with an odor sensation. 84…”

Methodologies for smellwalks and scentwalks—a critical review

“…Groups of five smellwalkers undertook field work comparing live or simulated experience (using audio and video recordings) of Singaporean open air markets ( Lindborg and Liew 2021 ). Locations were selected for having strong sensory experience identity, with duration between 70 and 90 min in the early morning, covering seven stopping points.…”

“…Attributes included the evaluation of olfactory site aspects on a seven-point scale as well as personal descriptions of thoughts and feelings. Interestingly, participants were asked to describe the most faint or secretive, most loud or dominant, most beautiful or precious, and the most ugly or disgusting smell detected in each location, in conjunction with perceived sources or events ( Lindborg and Liew 2021 ).…”

“…The use of virtual smellwalks is also an emerging research tool. Lindborg and Liew (2021) utilized both locals and foreigners in a virtual replication of an early morning smellwalk of seven scenes in three formats (audio only, video only, and audio and video format). Here, participants were asked questions about environment pleasantness and imagined smells in each scene ( Lindborg and Liew 2021 ).…”