Introduction

Our visual, auditory, and tactile perception is not solely determined by what we process at a given moment in time, but also determined by what we perceived recently. These sequential effects can either be negative (repulsive) or positive (assimilative). Here, we investigated whether such sequential effects also occur in odor perception.

Method

Participants rated a sequence of 40 different odors (varying widely in hedonic valence) on four different characteristics (intensity, familiarity, valence, and arousal). For each of these characteristics, we conducted an inter-trial analysis, based on whether the rating on the preceding trial was low or high.

Results

We found a positive serial dependence for both odor intensity and familiarity ratings. That is, the rating on the current trial was higher when the rating on the previous trial was high than when the rating on the previous trial was low. We observed no sequential effects for odor valence and arousal ratings.

Conclusion

The olfactory system integrates previous stimuli into the current perception of intensity and familiarity.

Implications

The current findings may be relevant for marketing applications and may guide the design and use of olfactory-enhanced virtual and augmented reality systems.

中文翻译：

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气味感知的序列效应

介绍

我们的视觉、听觉和触觉感知不仅取决于我们在特定时刻处理的内容，还取决于我们最近感知的内容。这些连续效应可以是负面的（排斥性的）或正面的（同化性的）。在这里，我们研究了这种连续效应是否也发生在气味感知中。

方法

参与者根据四种不同的特征（强度、熟悉度、效价和唤醒度）对 40 种不同气味的序列（愉悦效价差异很大）进行评分。对于每个特征，我们根据先前试验的评级是低还是高进行了试验间分析。

结果

我们发现气味强度和熟悉度评级均呈正序列依赖性。也就是说，当先前试验的评级较高时当前试验的评级高于先前试验的评级较低时的评级。我们观察到气味效价和唤醒等级没有连续效应。

结论

嗅觉系统将先前的刺激整合到当前的强度和熟悉度感知中。

影响

目前的发现可能与营销应用相关，并可能指导嗅觉增强虚拟和增强现实系统的设计和使用。