The relationship between smell and mood is well known. For example, soft floral scents such as lavender and rose are calming and relaxing, and woody fragrances such as patchouli and sandalwood are warm and sensual. Fresh citrus scents such as clementine and lemongrass are invigorating and uplifting, which is why they are often used in gym air scent diffusers.
However, some interesting new research suggests that there may also be a fascinating relationship between our sense of smell and color perception. Neuroscience News reports that the study involved 24 adult women and men aged between 20 and 57 years of age who had no issues with color blindness or olfactory impairments.
The experiment took place in an isolation room with purified air and the participants wore no deodorants or other perfumed products. An ultrasonic diffuser then released one of six odors including caramel, cherry, coffee, lemon, and peppermint, plus odorless water as a control.
The participants then had to make a color selection of neutral gray from a sliding screen selector. The researchers found that certain smells influenced the accuracy of the selection, so that a coffee or cherry smell led to a selection of gray with red brown tones, and caramel led to a selection of gray with blue overtones.
Lead author Dr Ryan Ward, a senior lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University in Liverpool, UK, said: “Here we show that the presence of different odors influences how humans perceive color.”
He continued: “In a previous study, we had shown that the odor of caramel commonly constitutes a crossmodal association with dark brown and yellow, just like coffee with dark brown and red, cherry with pink, red, and purple, peppermint with green and blue, and lemon with yellow, green, and pink.”
“These results show that the perception of gray tended towards their anticipated crossmodal correspondences for four out of five scents, namely lemon, caramel, cherry, and coffee.
“This ‘overcompensation’ suggests that the role of crossmodal associations in processing sensory input is strong enough to influence how we perceive information from different senses, here between odors and colors.”
This raises some interesting questions about how our brains process multiple sensory experiences including color perception. Do the fragrances that surround us subconsciously influence our choice of food, homewares or clothing, for example?
Scent is already widely used as a marketing tool because of its strong association with memory and mood, but research such as this could offer further avenues to explore. The authors of the study pointed out that the research is still in the early stages and there are many more questions to explore.
Ward said: “We need to know the degree to which odors influence color perception. For example, is the effect shown here still present for less commonly encountered odors, or even for odors encountered for the first time?”
There is also a relationship between smell and smoothness of textures and the pitch of music.
