Visualising fragrances through colours: the mediating role of emotions.
To facilitate communication about fragrances, one can use the colours people tend to associate with their smells. We investigated to what extent odour-colour correspondences for fine fragrances can be accounted for by underlying emotional associations. Odour-colour matches and degree-of-fit judgments revealed that odours were matched to colours non-randomly. Matching colours differed mainly on blackness (brightness), and less on chromaticness (saturation) and hue. Furthermore, we found a consistent negative relationship between odour-colour degree-of-fit ratings and the difference between the odour scores and the colour scores on one of the emotion dimensions (pleasure). This suggests that emotional associations may partly underlie odour-colour correspondences.
Schifferstein
Hendrik N J
HN
Department of Industrial Design, Delft University of Technology, Landbergstraat 15, 2628 CE Delft, The Netherlands. h.n.j.schifferstein@io.tudelft.nl
Tanudjaja
Inge
I
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003116:Color; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011601:Psychophysics; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology*