In recent years, there has been growing interest in the possibility of augmenting the visitor’s experience of the exhibits in various art galleries and museums by means of the delivery of a genuinely multisensory experience, one that engages more than just the visual sense. This kind of approach both holds the promise of increasing engagement while, at the same time, also helping to address, in some small way, issues around accessibility for the visually impaired visitor. One of the increasingly popular approaches to enhancing multisensory experience design involves the use of scents that have been chosen to match, or augment, the art or museum display in some way. The various different kinds of congruency between olfaction and vision that have been investigated by researchers and/or incorporated into art/museum displays already are reviewed. However, while the laboratory research does indeed appear to suggest that people’s experience of the paintings (or rather reproductions or photos of the works of art) may well be influenced by the presence of an ambient odour, the results are by no means guaranteed to be positive, either in terms of the emotional response while viewing the display or in terms of the viewer’s subsequent recall of their multisensory experience. As such, caution is advised for those who may be considering whether to augment their multisensory displays/exhibits with ambient scent.

近年来，人们越来越关注通过提供真正的多感官体验（不仅仅是视觉）来增强参观者对各种艺术画廊和博物馆展品的体验的可能性。这种方法既有望提高参与度，同时也有助于在某种程度上解决视障游客的无障碍问题。增强多感官体验设计的日益流行的方法之一涉及使用经过选择以某种方式匹配或增强艺术或博物馆展示的气味。研究人员已经研究过的嗅觉和视觉之间的各种不同类型的一致性和/或已经纳入艺术/博物馆展示中。然而，虽然实验室研究确实表明人们对绘画（或者更确切地说是艺术作品的复制品或照片）的体验很可能受到环境气味存在的影响，但结果并不能保证是正确的。积极的，无论是在观看显示器时的情绪反应方面，还是在观看者随后对其多感官体验的回忆方面。因此，对于那些可能正在考虑是否用环境气味来增强多感官展示/展览的人来说，建议谨慎。