Similarly, olfactory cues have also been demonstrated to influence various aspects of person perception, such as attractiveness (Demattè et al., 2007), gender (Zhou et al., 2014), and affect. So, for example, the presence of pleasant versus unpleasant olfactory stimuli influence people’s ratings of everything from paintings to pictures (Wrzesniewski et al., 1999 see Spence, 2002, 2020a, for reviews). The sensory cues that happen to be presented in one modality have often been shown to influence our perception of those stimuli presented in a different sensory modality (Spence, 2021a). At the same time, a number of specific suggestions for future research are also raised. This review critically evaluates the extensive literature on the olfactory modulation of person perception and highlights a number of the peculiar (or idiosyncratic) aspects of the underpinning experimental designs. As such, the real-world relevance of much of the research that has demonstrated a crossmodal effect of olfactory cues (no matter whether person-related or ambient) on person perception can be questioned. At the same time, however, the methodological decisions in laboratory research designed to maximize the likelihood of observing a crossmodal effect on visual judgments of person perception often reduce the ecological-validity of the experimental designs. Establishing the most appropriate experimental methods by which to support claims around the efficacy of fragrance is of great commercial interest to the fragrance and home and personal care industries. Attractiveness judgments would appear to be influenced to a greater extent than other judgments about people by the presence of a pleasant (as compared to an unpleasant) scent.
A large body of research now shows that the presence of odour can indeed influence person perception through a range of mechanisms from mood-induction to crossmodal affective/semantic priming, and changes in arousal. Empirical studies of the crossmodal influence of ambient odours, personal fragrances, and chemosensory body-related odours on multisensory perception are, though, a much more recent phenomenon. People have been wearing fragrance for millennia in the belief that masking their body odour will help them to look more attractive. At the end of this narrative review, a number of the potential (and actual) applications for, and implications of, such crossmodal/multisensory phenomena involving olfaction are outlined briefly. Several potential cognitive mechanisms have been put forward to try and explain such crossmodal/multisensory influences, and some of the neural substrates underpinning these effects have now been characterized. At the same time, however, it is important to note that the presence of scent (and/or the absence of malodour) can also influence people’s (i.e., a perceiver’s) self-confidence which may, in turn, affect how attractive they appear to others.
The crossmodal and multisensory contributions to such effects are reviewed and the limitations/peculiarities of the research that have been published to date are highlighted.
Numerous peer-reviewed studies have documented that a variety of olfactory stimuli, from ambient malodours through to fine fragrances, and even a range of chemosensory body odours can influence everything from a perceiver’s judgments of another person’s attractiveness, age, affect, health/disease status, and even elements of their personality. In recent decades, there has been an explosion of research into the crossmodal influence of olfactory cues on multisensory person perception.
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