Crossmodal effect of music and odor pleasantness on olfactory quality perception.

Carlos Velasco,Diana Balboa,Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos,Charles Spence

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01352

Carlos Velasco, Diana Balboa + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01352

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Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that ratings of the perceived pleasantness and quality of odors can be modulated by auditory stimuli presented at around the same time. Here, we extend these results by assessing whether the hedonic congruence between odor and sound stimuli can modulate the perception of odor intensity, pleasantness, and quality in untrained participants. Unexpectedly, our results reveal that broadband white noise, which was rated as unpleasant in a follow-up experiment, actually had a more pronounced effect on participants’ odor ratings than either the consonant or dissonant musical selections. In particular, participants rated the six smells used as being less pleasant and less sweet when they happened to be listening to white noise, as compared to any one of the other music conditions. What is more, these results also add evidence to support the existence of a close relationship between an odor’s hedonic character and the perception of odor quality. So, for example, independent of the sound condition, pleasant odors were rated as sweeter, less dry, and brighter than the unpleasant odors. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for the understanding of crossmodal correspondences between olfactory and auditory stimuli.

Highlights

Researchers have demonstrated that olfactory perception can be influenced by inputs from the other senses presented prior to and/or at the same time
A variety of crossmodal correspondences— the name given to the tendency for people to match the information presented in one sensory modality to that presented in another—have been documented between olfaction and the other senses (e.g., Stevenson et al, 2012; Deroy et al, 2013)
Average ratings were submitted to this analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the factors of music, and odor for each of the odor attributes that the participants had to rate

Summary

Introduction

Researchers have demonstrated that olfactory perception can be influenced by inputs from the other senses presented prior to and/or at the same time (see Calvert et al, 2004; Stein, 2012 for reviews). Belkin et al (1997) provided one of the first examples of olfactory–auditory correspondences, showing that people would match a series of odors varying in quality, to sounds that differed in terms of their pitch (cf Piesse, 1891). These results were later extended by Crisinel and Spence (2012) who found that people tended to match certain odors to the timbres of particular musical instruments (see Crisinel et al, 2013)

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