Olfactory training enhances emotion recognition in primary-school children – preliminary results
Thu-P1-035
Presented by: Marta Rokosz
Olfaction is associated with emotional functioning. Decreased olfactory performance has been found in patients who suffer from emotional disorders such as depression and conversely, people with anosmia more often report depressive symptoms. Most of the evidence linking olfaction and emotional functioning comes from the adult population, whereas it appears extremely interesting, whether enhanced olfactory performance may relate to the improvement of emotional processing in young children who rapidly develop emotional skills. This poster presents the results of a preliminary study on the effects of olfactory training on emotion recognition in healthy children. A total of 70 children participated in our study, of whom 45 performed a 12-week olfactory training twice a day using Sniffin Sticks with four scents: lemon, rose, eucalyptus, and clove. The children in the control group (n = 25) performed the same training regimen but used odorless Sniffin Sticks. Emotion recognition was assessed using Emotion Matching Test (EMT). After excluding participants who did not complete at least 50% of the training and those with hyposmia, the groups included in the analyses consisted of 33 children (66% girls; Mage = 7.30 ± 0.51 years) in the experimental group and 24 children (49% girls; Mage = 7.96 ± 0.75 years) in the control group. We analyzed whether olfactory training improved emotion recognition in children using a general linear model. We found that emotion recognition improved in the experimental group but not in the control group. These results suggest regular olfactory training can be used as a safe, accessible, and inexpensive method of enhancing emotional processing in primary-school children. This work was supported by National Science Centre in Poland (#2020/37/B/HS6/00288 awarded to AO).