Scent presentation expressing two smells of different intensity simultaneously

Abstract

Studies aiming at increasing the sense of reality by using scents with the picture medium, such as movies, have lately attracted much attention. In the picture medium, multiple objects with different scents are seen at the same time. Therefore, it is thought that by controlling the presentation of scent in accordance with the various scented objects seen, the viewer will experience a greater sense of realism. This realism will be further heightened by expressing through scent the distance relation between the multiple objects, that is, stronger scent for objects in the foreground and weaker scent for those in the background. However, this requires a technique that can not only present multiple scents which must be perceived simultaneously, but also express a distance relation between them. In this study, by using pulse ejection which emits scents for only very short periods of time and by measuring the olfactory characteristics for various scent presentation patterns by changing the relative amount and presentation frequency of the two scents, we succeeded in enabling around 90 percent of users to sense the distance relation between two scents. The proposed method for presenting scent depicting multiple objects shown simultaneously in the picture medium is expected to further enhance the sense of reality.