Summary: A new study shows that people from different cultural backgrounds can react very differently to the same smells, and that simply naming a scent reduces many of those differences.
Source: McGill University.
Olfactory perception influenced by background and semantic information
Smelling is not a purely chemical sensation: our cultural background and the words we use to identify an odor shape how we experience it. Researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute (The Neuro) partnered with the Lyon Neuroscience Research Centre to compare how people in Quebec and France perceive the same smells. Although both groups speak the same language and share many traditions, the team found clear differences in how the same scents were rated and described.
Clinical neuropsychologist Jelena Djordjevic and colleagues selected six familiar scents for their study: anise, lavender, maple, wintergreen, rose and strawberry. Participants in Quebec and in France were asked to smell each odor twice: once without any label and a second time after being told the odor’s name. For every scent, participants rated pleasantness, intensity, familiarity and edibility. In addition to verbal ratings, researchers recorded non-verbal reactions such as sniffing behavior, facial muscle activity, respiration and heart rate to capture subconscious responses.
The study revealed notable cultural differences in both verbal and non-verbal measures. For example, French participants rated wintergreen as far less pleasant than French-Canadian participants. This difference likely reflects distinct everyday uses of the scent: in France wintergreen tends to appear more often in medicinal products, whereas in Canada it is frequently found in candy. Canadians reported greater familiarity with maple and wintergreen scents, while people in France were more familiar with lavender. When asked to name or describe odors, Canadians were more accurate for maple and wintergreen, whereas French participants gave more precise descriptions for lavender. Anise produced similar overall ratings across groups but differed in labels: Quebec participants commonly described it as “licorice,” while participants in France tended to call it “anise.”
Strikingly, telling participants the name of each odor reduced these cultural differences. When the scent label was provided, ratings of familiarity, pleasantness and edibility increased and many between-group differences diminished or disappeared. The same pattern appeared in the non-verbal physiological measures: once the odor was identified, participants’ sniffing, facial responses, breathing and heart-rate changes became more similar across cultures.
These results suggest that semantic information—the mental representation activated by an odor’s name—has a unifying effect on olfactory perception. In other words, the concept or label attached to a smell aligns people’s expectations and emotional responses more than the raw sensory input alone. Cultural background still shapes the initial sensory impressions, but simply providing a label can override or reduce those differences.
The findings, published in the journal Chemical Senses on September 21, 2016, reinforce the idea that olfaction is shaped by learning and experience as much as by chemistry. Olfactory processing relies on ancient brain structures, and its subjective qualities reflect both prior exposure and semantic knowledge about odors. Understanding these top-down influences is important not only for fundamental neuroscience, but also for clinical work: loss of smell is common in normal aging and in many neurological disorders, and studying how olfactory perception changes may offer insights into disease mechanisms and potential treatments.
“In psychology, we call these effects ‘top-down influences,’” says Jelena Djordjevic. “Even basic processes, such as smelling, are shaped by where we come from and what we know. Studying this ancient sensory system helps us understand human evolution and offers practical insight into aging and neurological conditions that affect smell.”
Funding: The study was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the French National Research Agency.
Source: Shawn Hayward – McGill University
Image source: Image credited to Patrick J. Lynch, medical illustrator; C. Carl Jaffe, MD, cardiologist.
Original research: Abstract for “Individual Differences in Verbal and Non-Verbal Affective Responses to Smells: Influence of Odor Label Across Cultures” by Camille Ferdenzi, Pauline Joussain, Bérengère Digard, Lucie Luneau, Jelena Djordjevic, and Moustafa Bensafi in Chemical Senses. Published online September 21, 2016. doi:10.1093/chemse/bjw098
Abstract
Individual Differences in Verbal and Non-Verbal Affective Responses to Smells: Influence of Odor Label Across Cultures
Olfactory perception varies widely between individuals, shaped by both personal experience and context. This study examined two major sources of variation: cultural background and the availability of semantic information. Participants from France and Quebec smelled four culture-specific odors and two non-specific odors in two conditions: first without labels, then with labels. Researchers collected ratings of pleasantness, familiarity, edibility and intensity, along with psychophysiological and olfactomotor responses. Results demonstrated significant effects of both culture and semantic information at verbal and non-verbal levels. Crucially, providing odor labels reduced cultural differences. Semantic information acted to unify olfactory perception, often overriding the influence of cultural background.