The scent of attraction and the smell of success: crossmodal influences on person perception

Abstract

In recent decades, there has been an explosion of research into the crossmodal influence of olfactory cues on multisensory person perception. Numerous peer-reviewed studies have documented that a variety of olfactory stimuli, from ambient malodours through to fine fragrances, and even a range of chemosensory body odours can influence everything from a perceiver’s judgments of another person’s attractiveness, age, affect, health/disease status, and even elements of their personality. The crossmodal and multisensory contributions to such effects are reviewed and the limitations/peculiarities of the research that have been published to date are highlighted. At the same time, however, it is important to note that the presence of scent (and/or the absence of malodour) can also influence people’s (i.e., a perceiver’s) self-confidence which may, in turn, affect how attractive they appear to others. Several potential cognitive mechanisms have been put forward to try and explain such crossmodal/multisensory influences, and some of the neural substrates underpinning these effects have now been characterized. At the end of this narrative review, a number of the potential (and actual) applications for, and implications of, such crossmodal/multisensory phenomena involving olfaction are outlined briefly.

Olfaction in the Multisensory Processing of Faces: A Narrative Review of the Influence of Human Body Odors

“…Although the focus of the current review was put on human body odors, the widespread use of artificial fragrances (e.g., Roberts et al, 2010), however, requires to acknowledge their influence on everyday social communication (Allen et al, 2019;Spence, 2021), and regarding this latter point in particular, the interaction between extraneous fragrances and natural body odors should be carefully examined. Perfumes for instance may be used to exalt some particular invariant components of body odor (e.g., masculinity/femininity, personality traits, see Allen et al, 2019, for review) or perhaps hide others (e.g., emotional or illness cues), which may have influences on both receiver and sender sides in modulating person and face perception (e.g., Roberts et al, 2009; for review see Spence, 2021;Syrjänen et al, 2021). The nature and extent of interactions between artificial fragrances and body odor components related to transient states such as emotion or illness, however, are relatively unexplored, as are their impacts on social cognition.…”

“…Recently, however, a growing amount of studies in biology, psychology, and anthropology stressed the overlooked role of olfaction in human behavior, and in particular in social cognition (e.g., Stoddart, 1990;Schaal and Porter, 1991;Classen et al, 2002;Stevenson, 2010;Pause, 2017). As recent reviews have excellently covered the effects on face perception of arbitrary odors selected for their hedonic valence (Syrjänen et al, 2021, see also Spence, 2021), the present essay will survey investigations on how natural human body odors, or isolated compounds therein, can modulate the perception and emotional appraisal of faces. Our analysis of the current literature will exploit the lens of face processing under various olfactory influences in following evolutionary and developmental perspectives.…”

How Semantically Labeled Scent-Gender Associations Influence the Evaluations of Scent and Texture

“…The semantic label of femininity/masculinity on scents influences perception and cognition (e.g., Zellner et al, 2008 ; Speed and Majid, 2019 ; Spence, 2021 ). Zellner et al (2008) demonstrated that femininity/masculinity labels on fine fragrances influenced color–odor correspondences, with participants being told that a fragrance was either feminine (for women) or masculine (for men).…”

You See What You Smell: Preferential Processing of Chemosensory Satiety Cues and Its Impact on Body Shape Perception

“…Here, pictures of overweight and underweight avatars were presented in the context of satiety and fasting body odor. Several studies demonstrate that social chemosignals are able to change the information content of social visual signals in multimodal settings, suggesting a prominent role of chemosignals in social communication [ 19 ]. In line with the effects of anxiety and fear odor in easing the social visual perception of fear [ 20 ], reducing the perceptual acuity for cues of happiness [ 21 ], and increasing the perceptual relevance of neutral human actions [ 22 ], it is assumed that chemosensory satiety cues adjust the visual processing of underweight avatars and that chemosensory fasting cues adjust the visual processing of overweight avatars, each according to the chemosensory context.…”