Introduction

Our visual, auditory, and tactile perception is not solely determined by what we process at a given moment in time, but also determined by what we perceived recently. These sequential effects can either be negative (repulsive) or positive (assimilative). Here, we investigated whether such sequential effects also occur in odor perception.

Method

Participants rated a sequence of 40 different odors (varying widely in hedonic valence) on four different characteristics (intensity, familiarity, valence, and arousal). For each of these characteristics, we conducted an inter-trial analysis, based on whether the rating on the preceding trial was low or high.

Results

We found a positive serial dependence for both odor intensity and familiarity ratings. That is, the rating on the current trial was higher when the rating on the previous trial was high than when the rating on the previous trial was low. We observed no sequential effects for odor valence and arousal ratings.

Conclusion

The olfactory system integrates previous stimuli into the current perception of intensity and familiarity.

Implications

The current findings may be relevant for marketing applications and may guide the design and use of olfactory-enhanced virtual and augmented reality systems.

中文翻译：

---

气味感知的连续效应

介绍

我们的视觉、听觉和触觉感知不仅取决于我们在特定时间处理的内容，还取决于我们最近的感知。这些连续效应可以是消极的（排斥性的）也可以是积极的（同化性的）。在这里，我们调查了这种连续效应是否也发生在气味感知中。

方法

参与者根据四个不同的特征（强度、熟悉度、效价和唤醒）对 40 种不同的气味（享乐效价差异很大）进行了评级。对于这些特征中的每一个，我们根据先前试验的评级是低还是高进行了试验间分析。

结果

我们发现气味强度和熟悉度等级都存在正的连续依赖性。也就是说，当前一次试验的评级高时，当前试验的评级高于前一次试验的评级低时。我们没有观察到气味效价和唤醒评级的连续影响。

结论

嗅觉系统将先前的刺激整合到当前对强度和熟悉度的感知中。

影响

当前的发现可能与营销应用相关，并可能指导嗅觉增强虚拟和增强现实系统的设计和使用。