May 18, 2005 -- A rose by any other name may not smell as sweet according to
May 18, 2005 -- A rose by any other name may not smell as sweet according to new research that shows words affect how scents are perceived.
It's a finding that should come as welcome news to restaurateurs and advertising copywriters. Researchers found that describing a scent with pleasant words before presenting it may actually cause the brain to perceive it more positively.
That means people may perceive the same scent as more pleasant when it is labeled as "cheddar cheese" rather than "body odor."
The findings appear in the May 19 issue of the journal Neuron.
Words Affect Smells
In the study, researchers presented a group of people with a cheddar cheese scent labeled as either cheddar cheese or body odor.
They also scanned the subjects' brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine which areas of the brain were activated. The participants were presented with clean air that had been labeled as cheddar cheese or body odor.
They found that people rated the scent as much more pleasant when it was labeled as cheddar cheese rather than body odor.
Brain scans revealed that when the cheddar cheese scent was labeled as cheddar cheese, it activated a region of the brain that processes olfactory information. Clean air labeled as cheddar cheese produced the same effect, although to a lesser extent.
But when clean air or the cheddar cheese scent was labeled as body odor, this area of the brain was not activated.
Researchers say the results indicate that verbal cues can be very important in influencing subjective responses, such as perceiving an odor as pleasant or unpleasant, and this effect extends to the brain.
Whether the different labels caused the participants to imagine a smell or affected the brain's processing of odors is unclear, but researchers say the major finding is that the sight of a word can influence parts of the brain normally activated by odors.
