Emotional expression in human odour

Abstract

Recent work has demonstrated that human body odour alters with changing emotional state and that emotionally laden odours can affect the physiology and behaviour of people exposed to them. Here we review these discoveries, which we believe add to a growing recognition that the human sense of smell, and its potential role in social interactions, have been underappreciated. However, we also critically evaluate the current evidence, with particular focus on methodology and interpretation of emotional odour studies. We argue that while the evidence convincingly indicates that humans retain a capacity for olfactory communication of emotion, the extent to which this occurs in ordinary social interaction remains an open question. Future studies should place fewer restrictions on participant selection and lifestyle and adopt more realistic experimental designs. We also need to devote more consideration to underlying mechanisms and to recognise the constraints that these may place on effective communication. Finally, we outline some promising approaches to address these issues, and raise some broader theoretical questions that such approaches may help us to answer.

Cross-modal associations of human body odour attractiveness with facial and vocal attractiveness provide little support for the backup signals hypothesis: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…These include, for example, control over facial expressions during image acquisition, the volume of voice recordings, and dietary restrictions in body odour sampling. Although methodologically challenging, the use of more naturalistic stimuli with facial expressiveness, the prosody of speech and natural variation in body odour (Roberts et al, 2022) may provide additional insight into the patterns of associations and congruence across sensory modalities investigated here.…”

Smell throughout the life course

“…For instance, the smell of family members or partners has been shown to have a calming effect on adults, 171 and positive emotions such as happiness may also be communicated by social odors. 172 However, this novel field of research is not yet able to tell us if such expression of affective states in human odors takes part in our everyday social interactions (reviewed in Roberts et al 173 ; see Section 4.2).…”

Male Body Odor Affects Emotional State, LH and Cortisol Secretion in Women of Different Age Groups

“…The modulatory effect of male axillary secretions or their components has been addressed in several studies [6,12,13]. The aim of the present study was to determine the role of menstrual cycle phase on the effects of the male axillary secretions in women.…”