Odor Hedonic Profile (OHP): a self-rating tool of everyday odors

Abstract

Odor hedonic estimation (pleasant/unpleasant) is considered the first and one of the most important dimensions in odor perception. Although there are several published scales that rate odor hedonicity, most of them use odorants that induce biases related to stimulus properties or test conditions and make difficult clinical or industrial applications. Thus, this study aimed to propose a model of odor hedonic profile (OHP) based on 14 items related to everyday odors without stimulus. The OHP is a self-rating tool based on the hedonic estimate representation and allows the determination of specific profiles, i.e., "conservative," "neutral," "liberal," "negative olfactory alliesthesia," and "positive olfactory alliesthesia." It can be useful in different contexts (e.g., food studies) and general pathologies (e.g., eating disorders) or pathologies with mood/emotional disturbances (e.g., depression).

Keywords: everyday odors; hedonic valence; olfaction; pleasantness; self-rating.

Figure 1

The mean and standard deviation of scores for all items in the entire population.

Figure 2

Total scores: number of participants for each total score range (e.g., 40 to 49.5 means that total score I comprised between 40 and 49.5 included). The total score (TS) is the absolute value of the sum of the hedonic scores of all items. Each item is rated on a dashed line ranging from −9 to 0 for unpleasant polarity and from 0 to +9 for pleasant polarity.

Figure 3

The mean and standard deviation of scores for all items in the men population.

Figure 4

The mean and standard deviation of scores for all items in the women population.

Figure 5

Example of individual profiles: scores for all items. (A) liberal profile (man); (B) conservative profile (man); (C) neutral profile (woman); (D) positive alliesthesia profile (man); and (E) negative alliesthesia profile (woman).