The perception of odor pleasantness is shared across cultures

Artin Arshamian; Richard C Gerkin; Nicole Kruspe; Ewelina Wnuk; Simeon Floyd; Carolyn O'Meara; Gabriela Garrido Rodriguez; Johan N Lundström; Joel D Mainland; Asifa Majid

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2022.02.062

The perception of odor pleasantness is shared across cultures

Curr Biol. 2022 May 9;32(9):2061-2066.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.02.062. Epub 2022 Apr 4.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Tomtebodavägen 18A, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: artin.arshamian@ki.se.
² School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, 427 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA.
³ Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Helgonabacken 12, 223 62 Lund, Sweden.
⁴ Department of Anthropology, University College London, 14 Taviton Street, London WC1H 0BW, UK.
⁵ Colegio de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito 170901, Ecuador.
⁶ Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Circuito Maestro Mario de La Cueva S/N, C.U., Coyoacán, 04510 Ciudad de México, Mexico.
⁷ School of Languages and Linguistics, CoEDL, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia.
⁸ Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Tomtebodavägen 18A, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden; Monell Chemical Senses Center, 3500 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA; Stockholm University Brain Imaging Centre, Stockholm University, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, 415 Curie Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
⁹ Monell Chemical Senses Center, 3500 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA; Department of Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, 415 Curie Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG, UK. Electronic address: asifa.majid@psy.ox.ac.uk.

PMID: 35381183
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.02.062

Abstract

Humans share sensory systems with a common anatomical blueprint, but individual sensory experience nevertheless varies. In olfaction, it is not known to what degree sensory perception, particularly the perception of odor pleasantness, is founded on universal principles,^1-5 dictated by culture,^6-13 or merely a matter of personal taste.⁶^,^8-10^,¹²^,¹⁴ To address this, we asked 225 individuals from 9 diverse nonwestern cultures-hunter-gatherer to urban dwelling-to rank the monomolecular odorants from most to least pleasant. Contrary to expectations, culture explained only 6% of the variance in pleasantness rankings, whereas individual variability or personal taste explained 54%. Importantly, there was substantial global consistency, with molecular identity explaining 41% of the variance in odor pleasantness rankings. Critically, these universal rankings were predicted by the physicochemical properties of out-of-sample molecules and out-of-sample pleasantness ratings given by a tenth group of western urban participants. Taken together, this shows human olfactory perception is strongly constrained by universal principles.

Keywords: cross-cultural; cultural relativity; hunter-gatherer; odor perception; odor pleasantness; physicochemical; subsistence; universal; valence.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Emotions
Humans
Odorants*
Olfactory Perception*
Smell
Taste

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding