Odor valence linearly modulates attractiveness, but not age assessment, of invariant facial features in a memory-based rating task.

Janina Seubert,Jean-Marc Dessirier,Kristen M Gregory,Jessica Chamberland,Johan N Lundström,Thomas Hummel

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0098347

Abstract

Scented cosmetic products are used across cultures as a way to favorably influence one's appearance. While crossmodal effects of odor valence on perceived attractiveness of facial features have been demonstrated experimentally, it is unknown whether they represent a phenomenon specific to affective processing. In this experiment, we presented odors in the context of a face battery with systematic feature manipulations during a speeded response task. Modulatory effects of linear increases of odor valence were investigated by juxtaposing subsequent memory-based ratings tasks – one predominantly affective (attractiveness) and a second, cognitive (age). The linear modulation pattern observed for attractiveness was consistent with additive effects of face and odor appraisal. Effects of odor valence on age perception were not linearly modulated and may be the result of cognitive interference. Affective and cognitive processing of faces thus appear to differ in their susceptibility to modulation by odors, likely as a result of privileged access of olfactory stimuli to affective brain networks. These results are critically discussed with respect to potential biases introduced by the preceding speeded response task.

Highlights

Inferences of stable personal characteristics during face perception are, to a large extent, derived from so-called invariant perceptual features or semantic codes [1,2]
By applying linear manipulations to odors and invariant facial features, the present study demonstrates that olfactory and visual cues can alter memory-based representations of facial attractiveness in an additive manner
While factorial analyses indicated that concurrent presentation of odors influenced the representation of facial age, a closer examination of olfactory-visual interactions in a regression model revealed that only the integration pattern observed during attractiveness perception was consistent with the notion of olfactory-visual representation in a joint stimulus space

Summary

Introduction

Inferences of stable personal characteristics during face perception are, to a large extent, derived from so-called invariant perceptual features or semantic codes [1,2]. In line with experimental evidence indicating that the emotional valence of olfactory cues can affect preference for previously neutral visual stimuli [5,6,7,8], or emotion identification performance [9,10,11], studies have demonstrated that the perception of the attractiveness of facial features can be modulated by concurrent presentation of odors with either a very positive or very negative valence [12,13] Whether these effects are specific to affective processing, remains to be explored

Methods

Results

Conclusion