Olfactory Imagery and Emotions: Neuroscientific Evidence

Abstract

Stevenson and Case (2005) define olfactory imagery as “being able to experience the sensation of smell when an appropriate stimulus is absent.” Olfactory imagery is a form of odor presentation in addition to actual odors. In some cases, odors associated with a product are not necessarily accessible in the marketplace. For example, products are packaged or boxed and shown visually through pictures or ads. Online stores and e-commerce are also marketplaces generally restricted to the possible presentation of sensory information, including odor/scent. However, the relationship and performance between olfactory imagery and real odors have been shown to be very similar (Carrasco and Ridout 1993; Lyman 1988). These studies used multidimensional scaling (MDS) to identify the qualitative dimensions that underlie similarity judgments between real and imagined odors. Mental imagery literature has also provided evidence that odor imagery, along with visual imagery, can be developed and processed in the brain similarly to sensory processing occurring during actual stimuli. This is shown using fMRI and PET (Djordjevic et al. 2005). These authors discovered that olfactory imagery can affect the perception of odor. What has not been explicitly examined is whether odor imagery can also affect the emotions of individuals.