Development of a chemical-perceptual space of olfaction

Fri-P2-087

Presented by: Antonie Louise Bierling

Antonie Louise Bierling ^{1, 2, 3}, Maria Rommel ^{2, 4}, Alexander Croy ⁵, Thomas Hummel ⁴, Ilona Croy ¹

¹ Department of Clinical Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena, Germany, ² Department of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic, Faculty of Medicine of the Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, ³ Institute for Materials Science, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany, ⁴ Smell and Taste Clinic, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, ⁵ Institute of Physical Chemistry, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena, Germany

As a chemical sense, the molecular structure of an odor determines whether and how it is perceived by humans. However, a clear stimulus-percept mapping as in other sensory systems is yet unknown and studies with large psychophysical datasets remain scarce. The aim of this study is to investigate the ways in which measures of human odor perception are related to the chemical properties of odor molecules and the extent to which personality traits and experience with odors influence them.
To achieve these goals, a sample of 1200 healthy young participants receive a set of ten out of 74 monomolecular odors, which differ in their position in a physicochemical space of odors. The odors are first freely described and then rated according to perceptual dimensions such as pleasantness, intensity, and familiarity. In order to account for interinvididual differences, participants fill in questionnaires about their personality, odor significance and socio-demographic background.
We will present results from the first 500 study participants and focus on relations to chemical structure as well as interinvididual differences in perception.