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Sequential Effects in Odor Perception

  • Published:
Chemosensory Perception

Abstract

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.

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Data Availability

The data generated during the current study will be made available online.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. TNO, Human Factors, Soesterberg, the Netherlands

    Erik Van der Burg, Alexander Toet, Anne-Marie Brouwer & Jan B. F. van Erp

  2. Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    Erik Van der Burg

  3. Research Group Human Media Interaction, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands

    Jan B. F. van Erp

Authors
  1. Erik Van der Burg
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  2. Alexander Toet
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  3. Anne-Marie Brouwer
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  4. Jan B. F. van Erp
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Contributions

AT, AMB, and JvE were involved in collecting the original dataset. EvdB performed the analyses and prepared the figures. AT and EvdB wrote the main manuscript text. All authors reviewed the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexander Toet.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

The study was carried out according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki on Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects and approved by the local ethics committee (reference nr. 2019-024).

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All subjects provided written informed consent.

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Van der Burg, E., Toet, A., Brouwer, AM. et al. Sequential Effects in Odor Perception. Chem. Percept. 15, 19–25 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12078-021-09290-7

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