The effects of odor and body posture on perceived duration

Abstract

This study reports an examination of the internal clock model, according to which subjective time duration is influenced by attention and arousal state. In a time production task, we examine the hypothesis that an arousing odor and an upright body posture affect perceived duration. The experimental task was performed while participants were exposed to an odor and either sitting upright (arousing condition) or lying down in a relaxing chair (relaxing condition). They were allocated to one of three experimental odor conditions: rosemary (arousing condition), peppermint (relaxing condition), and no odor (control condition). The predicted effects of the odors were not borne out by the results. Self-reported arousal (SRA) and pleasure (PL) states were measured before, during (after each body posture condition) and postexperimentally. Heart rate (HR) and skin conductance were measured before and during the experiment. As expected, odor had an effect on perceived duration. When participants were exposed to rosemary odor, they produced significantly shorter time intervals than in the no odor condition. This effect, however, could not be explained by increased arousal. There was no effect of body posture on perceived duration, even though body posture did induce arousal. The results do not support the proposed arousal mechanism of the internal clock model.

Gender Differences in Time Perception During Olfactory Stimulation

“…For example, in the study by Tamm et al (2014), the duration judgment was performed on visual stimuli, whereas in this study time intervals were presented in an auditory modality within odor contexts. Schreuder et al (2014), investigating the effect of odor and body posture on a time production task for 1.33, 1.58, 2.17 min intervals, reported that when participants were exposed to arousing conditions they produced significantly shorter intervals than participants who were exposed to no odor. However, the physiological arousal measures and self-reports did not differ between the control and odor groups and this indicated that the perceived duration was not caused by increased arousal.…”

“…The authors found that when participants were exposed to an arousing odor (i.e., rosemary) they perceived shorter time intervals compared with a control condition without olfactory stimulation (Schreuder et al . ).…”

“…Namely, the hypothesis that an arousing odor may affect the subject's perception of the duration of a time production task as a function of body posture was tested. The authors found that when participants were exposed to an arousing odor (i.e., rosemary) they perceived shorter time intervals compared with a control condition without olfactory stimulation (Schreuder et al 2014).…”

“…) As far as we know there is only one study conducted by Schreuder et al . () that examined how odors and body postures influence the perception of long time intervals (minutes). Namely, the hypothesis that an arousing odor may affect the subject's perception of the duration of a time production task as a function of body posture was tested.…”

“…As reported by Seubert et al (2009), odors might clearly provoke changes of arousal and consequently may modulate the perception of time duration. Different kinds of odors activate emotional circuits and modulate the subjects' physiological arousal (Dalton et al 2008), facilitating or interfering with performance (Castiello et al 2006;Rossi et al 2008;Zhou et al 2010) As far as we know there is only one study conducted by Schreuder et al (2014) that examined how odors and body postures influence the perception of long time intervals (minutes). Namely, the hypothesis that an arousing odor may affect the subject's perception of the duration of a time production task as a function of body posture was tested.…”