Sweet Emotion: The Role of Odor-induced Context in the Search Advantage for Happy Facial Expressions

Damjanovic, Ljubica; Wilkinson, Heather; Lloyd, Julie

doi:10.1093/chemse/bjx081

Cited by 14 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 71 publications

(127 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…However, the results instead indicated that probes in the unpleasant odor condition were uniquely detected more rapidly over repeated trials within a block, raising the possibility that visual processing benefits of malodor exposure might accumulate over time. Similar time-on-task effects were found by Damjanovic et al (2018) in a visual search task. The authors found that happy faces were recognized faster initially in a pleasant and an unpleasant odor context; however, this effect was reversed toward the end of the task.…”

Section: Odor Effects On the Processing Of Face Stimulisupporting

confidence: 79%

A Review of the Effects of Valenced Odors on Face Perception and Evaluation

Syrjänen¹,

Fischer

Liuzza

et al. 2021

i-Perception

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How do valenced odors affect the perception and evaluation of facial expressions? We reviewed 25 studies published from 1989 to 2020 on cross-modal behavioral effects of odors on the perception of faces. The results indicate that odors may influence facial evaluations and classifications in several ways. Faces are rated as more arousing during simultaneous odor exposure, and the rated valence of faces is affected in the direction of the odor valence. For facial classification tasks, in general, valenced odors, whether pleasant or unpleasant, decrease facial emotion classification speed. The evidence for valence congruency effects was inconsistent. Some studies found that exposure to a valenced odor facilitates the processing of a similarly valenced facial expression. The results for facial evaluation were mirrored in classical conditioning studies, as faces conditioned with valenced odors were rated in the direction of the odor valence. However, the evidence of odor effects was inconsistent when the task was to classify faces. Furthermore, using a z-curve analysis, we found clear evidence for publication bias. Our recommendations for future research include greater consideration of individual differences in sensation and cognition, individual differences (e.g., differences in odor sensitivity related to age, gender, or culture), establishing standardized experimental assessments and stimuli, larger study samples, and embracing open research practices.

show abstract

Section: Odor Effects On the Processing Of Face Stimulisupporting

confidence: 79%

A Review of the Effects of Valenced Odors on Face Perception and Evaluation

Syrjänen¹,

Fischer

Liuzza

et al. 2021

i-Perception

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, the results instead indicated that probes in the unpleasant odor condition were uniquely detected more rapidly over repeated trials within a block, raising the possibility that visual processing benefits of malodor exposure might accumulate over time. Similar time-on-task effects were found by (Damjanovic, Wilkinson, & Lloyd, 2018) in a visual search task. The authors found that happy faces were recognized faster initially in a pleasant and an unpleasant odor context; however, this effect was reversed toward the end of the task.…”

Section: Odor Effects On the Processing Of Face Stimulisupporting

confidence: 81%

A review of the effects of valenced odors on face perception and evaluation

Syrjänen¹,

Fischer²,

Liuzza³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How do valenced odors affect the perception and evaluation of facial expressions? We reviewed 25 studies published from 1995 to 2020 on cross-modal effects between olfaction and facial perception. The results indicate that odors may influence facial evaluations and classifications in several ways. Faces are rated as more arousing during simultaneous odor exposure, and the rated valence of faces is affected in the direction of the odor valence. For facial classification tasks, in general, valenced odors, whether pleasant or unpleasant, decrease facial emotion classification speed. The evidence for valence congruency effects was inconsistent. Few studies found that exposure to a valenced odor facilitates the processing of a similarly valenced facial expression. The results for facial evaluation were mirrored in classical conditioning studies. Faces conditioned with valenced odors were rated in the direction of the odor valence. However, the evidence was inconsistent in facial classification tasks in this literature. Although the research shows some clear patterns, other effects are mixed. Our future research recommendations include greater consideration of individual differences in sensation and cognition, individual differences (e.g., differences in odor sensitivity related to age, gender, or culture), establishing standardized experimental assessments and stimuli, larger study samples, and embracing open research practices.

show abstract

“…Then the odors with the highest and lowest pleasantness scores were selected as pleasant and the unpleasant odor. Many previous studies have used lemon and rotten fish odors as pleasant and unpleasant odor, respectively (Chen and Dalton, 2005;Damjanovic et al, 2018). Lemon odor (M = 5.90, SD = 0.70) and rotten fishy odor (M = 2.27, SD = 0.90) differ significantly in terms of pleasantness (p < 0.001), but not in degree of arousal (p = 0.648).…”

Section: Odor Materialsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Unpleasant Food Odors Modulate the Processing of Facial Expressions: An Event-Related Potential Study

Jia

Wang

2020

Front. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In real-life situations, emotional information is often expressed through multiple sensory channels, with cross-talk between channels. Previous research has established that odor environments regulate the recognition of facial expressions. Therefore, this study combined event-related potentials (ERPs) with a facial emotion recognition task to investigate the effect of food odor context on the recognition of facial expressions and its time course. Fifty-four participants were asked to identify happy, fearful, and neutral faces in an odor context (pleasant, unpleasant or neutral). Electroencephalography (EEG) was performed to extract event-related potentials (ERPs). Behaviorally, unpleasant food odors triggered faster recognition of facial expressions, especially fearful ones. ERP results found that in the early stage, unpleasant food odors within 80-110 ms evoked a larger P100 amplitude than pleasant food odors and no odors, which showed that the unpleasant odor environment promoted the rapid processing of facial expressions. Next, the interaction between odor environment and facial expressions occurred during the middle stage, and the fearful expression evoked a smaller VPP (vertex positive potential) amplitude than the happy and neutral expressions when exposed to the unpleasant food odor environment. This result indicates that unpleasant odor environment consumed fewer cognitive resources when judging fearful expression, showing the promoting effect of mood coherence effect. These findings provided evidence for how people chose odor environments to facilitate the recognition of facial expressions, and highlighted the advantages of unpleasant food odors in communicating emotional information across the olfactory and visual pathways.

show abstract

Sweet Emotion: The Role of Odor-induced Context in the Search Advantage for Happy Facial Expressions

Cited by 14 publications

References 71 publications

A Review of the Effects of Valenced Odors on Face Perception and Evaluation

A Review of the Effects of Valenced Odors on Face Perception and Evaluation

A review of the effects of valenced odors on face perception and evaluation

Unpleasant Food Odors Modulate the Processing of Facial Expressions: An Event-Related Potential Study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About