all the respondents were asked to rank specific smells on a scale from pleasant to unpleasant. they smelled each one for two to three seconds, and waited at least 20 seconds between each. researchers found that variation between answers was more explained by personal preference (54 per cent of the variance between answers) and the smell’s molecular structure (41 per cent) than by a person’s culture.
the scent of vanilla was most popular, foot odour not so much
of the scents that were tested, vanilla was the most popular. it was followed by ethyl butyrate, a chemical compound that smells like peaches or pineapple. the least pleasant, meanwhile, was isovaleric acid, a compound that smells like foot odour and pungent cheese.
the universal quality of good vs. bad smells could have an evolutionary explanation, arshamian theorized: there are obviously some notable exceptions, but overall it was likely useful for humans to learn that many things that smell good provide nutrition, while things that smell bad are often bad for us to consume.
“now we know that there’s universal odour perception that is driven by molecular structure and that explains why we like or dislike a certain smell,” he said. “the next step is to study why this is so by linking this knowledge to what happens in the brain when we smell a particular odour.”
our brains process smells ‘like a painting and a symphony’
the study comes just days after another study on smell was published in the journal
cell reports
. that one, out of the university of rochester’s school of medicine and dentistry, looked at how our brains process smells. the study likened the brain’s processing of odour to both a painting and a symphony: there’s both a snapshot function and a function that tracks ever-evolving patterns.
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