Psychology of Fragrance, Continued proach to Product Design.” “Stimulating all five senses will in future be the key to retail success,” Churchill said, adding, “When buying or using products, all of the senses work together to provide an overall experience that determines how we feel and the decisions that we make.” She pointed out that humans are a visually dominated race, citing research showing that while vision, touch and smell were highly significant in product choice, hearing and taste were unimportant. “However, touch and smell provide more emotional benefits,” she added. “What we perceive via one sense will influence our other senses. These cross-model interactions create congruency of sensory stimuli.” She explained that, for instance, color can confuse people by using the wrong combinations of stimuli. “Add color to an odorless solution and respondents think it smells when in reality it doesn’t,” she said. The wrong color applied to foods—for instance, blue meat—had even been shown to cause complete aversion. “In spite of this, there is a tendency for product developers to consider elements of a product in isolation or to place emphasis just on the functional performance of the product,” Churchill concluded. “This may be to their detriment, as there is evidence that the consumer experience is richer and more engaging if a product stimulates several of the senses so long as those stimuli are coherent.” Professor Francis McGlone from the School of Natural Sciences & Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University and Visiting Professor at the University of Liverpool presented “The brain knows what the nose knows, but does the mind?” He believes that olfaction is overwhelmingly the most important of the five senses. “Although the human sense of smell has declined in comparison to other mammalians species over evolutionary history, it is clear that our behavior can still be powerfully influenced by odors and fragrances, often without conscious awareness,” he said. “At both a conscious and non-conscious level, humans through the ages have devised means by which to enhance facial attractiveness (a multi-billion dollar cosmetic industry attests to this fact), and an equally lucrative fragrance industry exploits the hedonic primacy of odors in the human brain. Yet it remains unclear whether the presence of odors can modulate the perceived attractiveness of faces.” He spoke of how most research into the psychology and neurophysiology of the senses focuses on their role as “contrast detectors” that is, their ability to detect change in the environment. This “warning” function is seen as paramount in evolutionary terms as its value to survival is obvious. Synchronization of sensory signals The final session was Synchronization of sensory signals, hosted by IFRA UK’s newly appointed Chairman, Jonathan Gray, Managing Director of Mane UK. Professor Charles Spence, Head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory based at the Dept. of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University presented “From perception to design,” pointing out that “the most successful products appeal on both a rational and subconscious level.” According to Spence, humans are not in-born with innate response to scents and tastes except for being drawn to sweet flavors. There is no intrinsic “pleasantness,” rather associations and pairings mean that our memories react to these scents and tastes. “For example, adding what we perceive to be a ‘new car fragrance’ to a used car makes it seem ‘good as new,’ even though the actual smell of a new car would be quite unpleasant,” said Spence. In regard to other sensory influences he asked, “Why do perfumes always come in heavy bottles?” showing how the heavier the pack the greater the perceived value of the product. Heavy wine bottles are used to help enhance the perceived value and therefore the price. Similar to Anne Churchill, he showed how important color was in affecting perceptions of Spence fragrance and perceived efficacy, but also pointed to the cross-cultural differences which meant that people in different countries often paired particular smells with differing colors. Speaking of the future, he pointed to one hotel group that offers to personalize rooms with a choice of scent but also talked about the difficulties, and opportunities, of using scent for online retailing. He also spoke of fruity fragrance notes being linked to the higher musical notes, saying that understanding octaves of odors could lead to rich insights into consumer perceptions. SPRAY 22 Spray February 2014 Gray
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