The Relation Between Valence and Arousal in Subjective Odor Experience
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The Relation Between Valence and Arousal in Subjective Odor Experience Alexander Toet 1 & Sophia Eijsman 1,2 & Yingxuan Liu 1,2 & Stella Donker 2 & Daisuke Kaneko 3 & Anne-Marie Brouwer 1 & Jan B.F. van Erp 1,4 Received: 18 June 2019 / Accepted: 5 November 2019 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Introduction he main purpose of this study was to investigate the overall relation between the mean (at the nomothetic or group level) subjective valence and arousal ratings for odors. Although well established in other sensory modalities (e.g., visual, auditory, gustatory, tactile), this relation has not previously been investigated for odors covering a large range of the valence dimension. In addition, we evaluated the EmojiGrid (a recently introduced intuitive graphical affective self-report tool) for the affective appraisal of odors. Methods Young and healthy participants (N = 56, 32 females) used the EmojiGrid to rate the perceived valence and arousal for 40 different and randomly presented odors, ranging in valence from unpleasant to pleasant. Results The overall relation between mean valence and arousal can be described by a U-shaped (quadratic) form; odors scoring near neutral on mean valence have the lowest mean arousal ratings, while odors scoring either high (pleasant) or low (unpleasant) on mean valence show higher mean arousal ratings. The results for odors that were also used in previous studies in the literature agree with their earlier reported values. Conclusion Mean arousal ratings increase with (positive or negative) emotional valence. Participants intuitively used the EmojiGrid to report their affective appraisal of odors without any verbal labels or written instructions. Implications The current findings are relevant for various applications and environments (e.g., public, retail, entertainment) where odors are used to induce desired emotional states (e.g., relaxation, arousal) and behaviors. The EmojiGrid can efficiently be applied to assess whether specific odors evoke the desired subjective affective experiences. Keywords Affective response . Olfactory perception . Odors . Valence . Arousal . EmojiGrid
Introduction Odors and Affect Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12078-019-09275-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Alexander Toet [email protected] 1
TNO Human Factors, Kampweg 55, 3769 DE Soesterberg, Netherlands
2
Social and Behavioural Sciences Dept, University Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
3
Kikkoman Europe R&D Laboratory B.V., Nieuwe Kanaal 7G, 6709 Wageningen, PA, Netherlands
4
Research Group Human Media Interaction, University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands
Odors effectively elicit various affective responses (Ehrlichman and Bastone 1992; Herz 2002), probably due to the high degree of overlap of the neural systems mediating olfaction and emotion (Soudry et al. 2011). Arousal and pleasantness (valence or hedonic tone) have been identified as
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