Individual Variation in Body Odor

Havlı́ček, Jan; Fialová, Jitka; Roberts, S. Craig

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-26932-0_50

Cited by 24 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…We did not observe sex-related differences in maternal classification for postpubertal children. However, an important limitation is that we did not assess the menstrual cycle phase of postpubertal girls, which is known to affect body odor assessment (Havlíček et al, 2017). This should be regarded in further studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The overall accuracy of developmental classification was low, although exceeding chance level. Body odors consist of various components including rather stable factors, such as the genetic profile (Milinski et al, 2013), but also highly variable influences, such as food, culture (Havlíček et al, 2017), or disease (Olsson et al, 2014). It is unclear how much variance each of these factors explain in odor perception.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We base this assumption on the observation that female body odors smell different across the menstrual cycle. In specific, men rate female body odors as more pleasant during ovulation (Havlíček et al, 2017), and this preference is disturbed by women's hormonal contraceptive use (Kuukasjärvi et al, 2004). The particular hormones that mediate this alteration in odor preference across the menstrual cycle are yet to be identified but steroid hormones may be a likely candidate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Children’s Body Odors: Hints to the Development Status

2020

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Mothers can recognize their own children by body odor. Besides signaling familiarity, children's body odors may provide other information relevant to maternal caregiving behavior, such as the child's developmental status. Thus, we explored whether mothers are able to classify body odors on pre-vs. postpubertal status above chance levels. In total, 164 mothers were presented with body odor samples of their own and four unfamiliar, sex-matched children who varied in age (range 0-18 years). Pubertal status was measured by (a) determining the child's steroid hormone level and (b) parental assessment of the child's developmental stage using the Pubertal Development Scale. Mothers classified developmental status with an accuracy of about 64%. Maternal assessments were biased toward pre-puberty. Classification was predicted by perceptual evaluation of the body odor (i.e. intensity and pleasantness) and by the child's developmental stage, but not by hormones. In specific, mothers with pubertal-aged children classified body odors using the child's developmental status, whereas mothers with younger children only classified body odors using perceptual information (i.e. intensity and pleasantness). Our data suggests that body odors convey developmental cues, but how this developmental information is manifested in body odor remains unclear.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Children’s Body Odors: Hints to the Development Status

2020

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“…Overall, such results suggest that several cues (e.g., individuality, gender, age, kin, physiological stage, health, psychological state, immunogenetic type, and diet) can be nested in the complex body odor of a particular person and that the perception of these different cues can be assessed under specific test conditions (cf. de Groot, Smeets, Kaldewaij, Duijndam, & Semin, ; Havlíček, Fialová, & Roberts, ; Miller & Maner, ; Penn et al, ; Schaal, ; Schaal & Porter, ). Thus, in the present case, it is possible that the physiological/psychological state of postpartum women similarly affected their body odors in a way that rendered them olfactorily similar to the infants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does any mother’s body odor stimulate interest in mother’s face in 4‐month‐old infants?

Durand

Schaal

Goubet

et al. 2020

Infancy

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Little is known about the effects of olfaction on visual processing during infancy. We investigated whether and how an infant's own mother's body odor or another mother's body odor affects 4‐month‐old infants’ looking at their mother's face when it is paired with a stranger's face. In Experiment 1, infants were exposed to their mother's body odor or to a control odor, while in Experiment 2, infants were exposed to a stranger mother's body odor while their visual preferences were recorded. Results revealed that infants looked more at the stranger's female face in presence of the control odor but that they looked more at their mother's face in the context of any mother's body odors. This effect was due to a reduction of looking at the stranger's face. These findings suggest that infants react similarly to the body odor of any mother and add to the growing body of evidence indicating that olfactory stimulation represents a pervasive aspect of infant multisensory perception.

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“…Havlíček et al, 2017), and previous studies on maternal recognition have shown that mothers can discriminate their newborn baby's body odour from that of other babies (Schaal et al, 1980;Fleming et al, 1995;Porter et al, 1983;Russell et al, 1983). However, there is a relative paucity of studies testing whether mothers can continue to recognise their child beyond infanthood.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%