Abstract
Previous research suggests that artificial fragrances may be chosen to complement or enhance an individual’s body odor, rather than simply masking it, and that this may create an odor blend with an emergent quality that is perceptually distinguishable from body odor or fragrance alone. From this, it can be predicted that a new emergent odor might be more easily identified than an individual’s body odor in isolation. We used a triangle test paradigm to assess whether fragrance affects people’s ability to distinguish between individual odors. Six male and six female donors provided axillary odor samples in three conditions (without fragrance, wearing their own fragrance, and wearing an assigned fragrance). In total, 296 female and 131 male participants selected the odd one from three odor samples (two from one donor, one from another; both of the same sex). We found that participants could discriminate between the odors at above chance levels in all three odor conditions. Olfactory identification ability (measured using Sniffin’ Sticks) positively predicted discrimination performance, and sex differences in performance were also observed, with female raters being correct more often than men. Success rates were also higher for odors of male donors. Additionally, while performance was above chance in all conditions, individual odor discrimination varied across the three conditions. Discrimination rate was significantly higher in the “no fragrance” condition than either of the fragranced conditions. Importantly, however, discrimination rate was also significantly higher in the “own fragrance” condition than the “assigned fragrance” condition, suggesting that naturally occurring variance in body odor is more preserved when blended with fragrances that people choose for themselves, compared with other fragrances. Our data are consistent with the idea that fragrance choices are influenced by fragrance interactions with an individual’s own body odor.
Highlights
There is a wealth of evidence supporting the availability of various cues from human body odor
Human body odors have been found to contain cues to genetic similarity at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), with research finding individuals to be capable of discriminating between MHC types, which may lead to adaptive mate choice for heterozygous offspring (Wedekind et al, 1995; Havlíček and Roberts, 2009)
Studies have found that those who have higher levels of facial and body symmetry are rated as looking and smelling more attractive (Rikowski and Grammer, 1999; Thornhill and Gangestad, 1999). These findings suggest that body odor discrimination is important, personal odor is often “modified” with the use of artificial fragrances (Roberts and Havlíček, 2012), with the conscious evaluation of body odor having a long history of negative connotations within numerous cultures (Schleidt et al, 1981)
Summary
There is a wealth of evidence supporting the availability of various cues from human body odor. Fragrance use and odor discrimination by others (Lord and Kasprzak, 1989), and the odors of identical twins can be matched at above chance levels by human sniffers, even when the siblings are living apart (Roberts et al, 2005). These findings are further supported by research showing that humans have distinct and reproducible “fingerprints” comprised of specific volatile compounds in their body odor (Penn et al, 2007). Human body odors have been found to contain cues to genetic similarity at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), with research finding individuals to be capable of discriminating between MHC types, which may lead to adaptive mate choice for heterozygous offspring (Wedekind et al, 1995; Havlíček and Roberts, 2009)
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