The Effect of Odor Valence on Facial Attractiveness Judgment: A Preliminary Experiment

Abstract

The role of social odors on human social interactions, including face evaluation, has been widely indicated. However, for nonsocial odors, there has not been a consistent conclusion. Therefore, this study aimed to verify the effect of suprathreshold nonsocial odors on facial attractiveness judgment when the visual input is ambiguous. We designed a 3 (odor valence: neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant) × 7 (continuous levels of morphed fuzziness of attractiveness: 37.5% to 62.5%) within-subject experiment. A total of 30 participants (18 females) completed the whole experiment simultaneously for three consecutive days. The results showed that faces presented with pleasant and neutral odors were judged as significantly more attractive than those with unpleasant odors. The intervention effect of odor valence on facial attractiveness differed by fuzzy attractiveness levels. Results also suggested that male faces were perceived as more attractive than female faces no matter the odor conditions. The results of this study provide evidence to support the cross-modal emotion integration effect of olfaction and vision. Follow-up studies need to be conducted to reveal the underlying mechanism of odor valence on visual fact attractive judgment.