Fear Odor Facilitates the Detection of Fear Expressions Over Other Negative Expressions
Open accessAbstract
In a double-blind experiment, participants were exposed to facial images of anger, disgust, fear, and neutral expressions under 2 body odor conditions: fear and neutral sweat. They had to indicate the valence of the gradually emerging facial image. Two alternative hypotheses were tested, namely a "general negative evaluative state" hypothesis and a "discrete emotion" hypothesis. These hypotheses suggest 2 distinctive data patterns for muscle activation and classification speed of facial expressions. The pattern of results that would support a "discrete emotions perspective" would be expected to reveal significantly increased activity in the medial frontalis (eyebrow raiser) and corrugator supercilii (frown) muscles associated with fear, and significantly decreased reaction times (RTs) to "only" fear faces in the fear odor condition. Conversely, a pattern of results characterized by only a significantly increased corrugator supercilii activity together with decreased RTs for fear, disgust, and anger faces in the fear odor condition would support an interpretation in line with a general negative evaluative state perspective. The data support the discrete emotion account for facial affect perception primed with fear odor. This study provides a first demonstration of perception of discrete negative facial expressions using olfactory priming.
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Previous research by the authors' group found that receivers exposed to donors' odor displayed a simulacrum in their facial expressions of the emotion experienced by the donors.
“In previous research by our group, the emotional signal in the sweat volatiles was validated by the finding that receivers exposed to donors’ odor displayed a simulacrum in their facial expressions of the emotion experienced by the donors [1,8,25,26,27,28]”
From Chemical Fingerprints of Emotional Body Odor (2020) · cites this paper as [26]
The order of emotion induction sessions was not random; sessions always started with fear and ended with neutral.
“Following previous research [1,8,26,27,28], and for reasons explained in the Methods section, the order of sessions was not random, always starting with fear and ending with neutral.”
From Chemical Fingerprints of Emotional Body Odor (2020) · cites this paper as [26]
Cites
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Chemosignals communicate human emotions
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Self-citationde Groot, J. H. B., Smeets, M. A. M., Rowson, M. J., Bulsing, P. J., Blonk, C. G., Wilkinson, J. E., & Semin, G. R. (2015) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797614566318 · Cited by 143 · see citing works
Self-citationde Groot, J. H. B., Semin, G. R., & Smeets, M. A. M. (2014) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/a0033731 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
Self-citationChemical communication of fear: A case of male-female asymmetry
de Groot, J. H. B., Semin, G. R., & Smeets, M. A. M. (2014) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/a0035950 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Self-citationRapid Stress System Drives Chemical Transfer of Fear from Sender to Receiver
de Groot, J. H. B., Smeets, M. A. M., & Semin, G. R. (2015) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0118211 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
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Calvi, E., Quassolo, U., Massaia, M., Scandurra, A., D'Aniello, B., & D'Amelio, P. (2020) · Brain and Behavior · doi:10.1002/brb3.1585 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
“In seven studies, authors investigated the ability to reproduce the same facial-muscle configuration of the sender in the receiver with EMG (de Groot et al., 2012, 2014a, 2014b, 2018; Groot, Smeets, Rowson, et al., 2015; Groot, Smeets, & Semin, 2015; Kamiloğlu et al., 2018).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialChemical Fingerprints of Emotional Body Odor
Smeets, M. A. M., Rosing, E. A. E., Jacobs, D. M., van Velzen, E., Koek, J. H., Blonk, C., Gortemaker, I., Eidhof, M. B., Markovitch, B., de Groot, J., et al. (2020) · Metabolites · doi:10.3390/metabo10030084 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
“, [24,25]), which has been measured by the caution manifested in a word choice task [24], the accuracy on an easy visual search task [25], the speed with which facial expressions were classified [26].”
MethodSelf-citationEncoding fear intensity in human sweat
de Groot, J. H. B., Kirk, P. A., & Gottfried, J. A. (2020) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2019.0271 · Cited by 45 · see citing works
Self-citationBeyond the west: Chemosignaling of emotions transcends ethno-cultural boundaries
de Groot, J. H. B., van Houtum, L. A. E. M., Gortemaker, I., Ye, Y., Chen, W., Zhou, W., & Smeets, M. A. M. (2018) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.08.005 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Kamiloğlu, R. G., Smeets, M. A. M., de Groot, J. H. B., & Semin, G. R.
- Affiliations
- Department of Social, Health and Organizational Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Utrecht University (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Semin, Gün R
- Venue
- Chemical Senses
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2018-05-22
- Volume
- 43
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 419-426
- ISSN
- 0379-864X (ISSN-L)
- 1464-3553
- OpenAlex
- W2804393213
- Cited by
- 45
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 3.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Chemical Senses (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (submittedVersion)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- VU Research Portal (submittedVersion)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- PubMed
- Funders
- Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
- Portuguese Science Foundation (IF/00085/2013)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Sensory Systems › Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- facial expression perception, fear expression, disgust, anger, negative emotions, discrete emotions, facial muscle activity, corrugator supercilii, reaction time
- MeSH terms
- Double-Blind Method, Facial Expression, Fear, Humans, Odorants, Sweat
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