Influence of Ambient Odors on Time Perception in a Retrospective Paradigm

Abstract

Environmental stimuli can influence time perception, including sensory stimulations. Among them, odors are known to modulate emotion, attention, behavior, or performance, but few studies have investigated the possible effects of ambient odors on time perception. Thus, the present study aimed to compare in a retrospective paradigm the time estimation in three conditions, i.e., with phenyl ethyl alcohol as a pleasant odor, pyridine as unpleasant odor, and a control condition without ambient odor. A total of 90 participants (M age = 23 years, 10 months) took part in three different tasks, i.e., an aesthetic classification task, a sensorimotor checking task, and a mathematical operations task. Results showed a better accuracy of the time estimation in odor condition (1) independently of the characteristics of odorants (2) limited to tasks with a low cognitive involvement. These findings are discussed in relation to the possible role of attention and arousal in the modulation of time perception by ambient odors.

Relaxing and stimulating effects of odors on time perception and their modulation by expectancy

“…However, in order to prevent a potential explanation in terms of stimuluscaptured attention, further studies could benefit from the presentation of the stimuli at a subliminal level (without mentioning to the participant the presence of the stimulus). Moreover, from a more practical point of view, presentation techniques such as odorizing a room as in Brand, Thiabaud, and Dray (2016) or spraying the odorant inside the foam cover of a microphone as in Leleu et al (2015) would be even more optimal and comfortable than holding a sniffing stick under the participant's nose for the entire experiment.…”

“…The effects of odors on time perception have been studied only very recently (Brand, Thiabaud, & Dray, 2016;Gros et al, 2015;Millot, Laurent, & Casini, 2016;Schreuder et al, 2014;Yue et al, 2016;Zhou, Feng, Chen, & Zhou, 2018). In an experiment by Gros et al (2015), participants had to estimate the duration of a sound (pure sounds, less than 2 s) that was preceded by an emotional olfactory or visual stimulus with a positive or negative valence.…”

Relaxing and stimulating ambient odors influence preferences for musical tempo

“…Our study also pinpoints the tempo preference task as a novel, indirect method for investigating olfactory-elicited emotions, notably the effects of emotional stimuli on time processing. These findings inform our understanding about the psychological mechanisms underlying the relaxing and stimulating effects of odors, and further adds to the evidence that odors can be used to influence human behavior efficiently (Brand et al, 2016;Degel & Köster, 1999;Guéguen & Petr, 2006;Lehrner et al,2000Lehrner et al, , 2005Leleu et al, 2015;Li et al, 2007;Mattila & Wirtz, 2001;Sela & Sobel, 2010). The demonstration of the implicit influence of ambient odors on time processing and tempo preference is highly relevant in many applied areas, including medical care, well-being improvement, sensory marketing, and consumer behavior.…”

O papel da emoção na percepção de tempo

“…Ademais, seria esperado que a atenção tivesse uma influência menor nas estimativas temporais em tarefas retrospectivas, porémBrand et al (2016)* mostraram que a atenção está igualmente envolvida nas distorções temporais observadas em ambas as tarefas. Outros resultados contraditórios tentam ser acomodados dentro das premissas do MOA com explicações metodológicas questionáveis, como Johnson e MacKay…”