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Olfactory interference on the emotional processing speed of visual stimuli: The influence of facial expressions intensities

Research on olfactory stimulation indicates that it can influence human cognition and behavior, as in the perception of facial expressions. Odors can facilitate or impair the identification of facial expressions, and apparently its hedonic valence plays an important role. However, it was also demons...

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Autores principales: Ferreira, Matheus Henrique, Renovato Tobo, Patricia, Barrichello, Carla Regina, Gualtieri, Mirella
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9113595/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35580112
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264261
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author Ferreira, Matheus Henrique
Renovato Tobo, Patricia
Barrichello, Carla Regina
Gualtieri, Mirella
author_facet Ferreira, Matheus Henrique
Renovato Tobo, Patricia
Barrichello, Carla Regina
Gualtieri, Mirella
author_sort Ferreira, Matheus Henrique
collection PubMed
description Research on olfactory stimulation indicates that it can influence human cognition and behavior, as in the perception of facial expressions. Odors can facilitate or impair the identification of facial expressions, and apparently its hedonic valence plays an important role. However, it was also demonstrated that the presentation of happiness and disgust faces can influence the emotional appraisal of odorants, indicating a bilateral influence in this phenomenon. Hence, it’s possible that odor influences on emotional categorization vary depending on the intensity of expressions. To investigate this hypothesis, we performed an emotion recognition task using facial expressions of five emotional categories (happiness, fear, disgust, anger and sadness) with ten different intensities. Thirty-five participants completed four blocks of the task, each with a different olfactory condition, and we found that odorants’ effects varied according to the facial expressions intensity. Odorants enhanced the Reaction Time (RT) differences between threshold and high-intensity expressions for disgust and fear faces. Also, analysis of the RT means for high-intensity facial expressions revealed that the well-known advantage in recognition of happiness facial expressions, compared to other emotions, was enhanced in the positive olfactory stimulation and decreased in the negative condition. We conclude that olfactory influences on emotional processing of facial expressions vary along intensities of the latter, and the discrepancies of past research in this field may be a result of a bilateral effect in which the odorants influence the identification of emotional faces just as the facial expressions influence the emotional reaction to the odor.
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spelling pubmed-91135952022-05-18 Olfactory interference on the emotional processing speed of visual stimuli: The influence of facial expressions intensities Ferreira, Matheus Henrique Renovato Tobo, Patricia Barrichello, Carla Regina Gualtieri, Mirella PLoS One Research Article Research on olfactory stimulation indicates that it can influence human cognition and behavior, as in the perception of facial expressions. Odors can facilitate or impair the identification of facial expressions, and apparently its hedonic valence plays an important role. However, it was also demonstrated that the presentation of happiness and disgust faces can influence the emotional appraisal of odorants, indicating a bilateral influence in this phenomenon. Hence, it’s possible that odor influences on emotional categorization vary depending on the intensity of expressions. To investigate this hypothesis, we performed an emotion recognition task using facial expressions of five emotional categories (happiness, fear, disgust, anger and sadness) with ten different intensities. Thirty-five participants completed four blocks of the task, each with a different olfactory condition, and we found that odorants’ effects varied according to the facial expressions intensity. Odorants enhanced the Reaction Time (RT) differences between threshold and high-intensity expressions for disgust and fear faces. Also, analysis of the RT means for high-intensity facial expressions revealed that the well-known advantage in recognition of happiness facial expressions, compared to other emotions, was enhanced in the positive olfactory stimulation and decreased in the negative condition. We conclude that olfactory influences on emotional processing of facial expressions vary along intensities of the latter, and the discrepancies of past research in this field may be a result of a bilateral effect in which the odorants influence the identification of emotional faces just as the facial expressions influence the emotional reaction to the odor. Public Library of Science 2022-05-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9113595/ /pubmed/35580112 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264261 Text en © 2022 Ferreira et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ferreira, Matheus Henrique
Renovato Tobo, Patricia
Barrichello, Carla Regina
Gualtieri, Mirella
Olfactory interference on the emotional processing speed of visual stimuli: The influence of facial expressions intensities
title Olfactory interference on the emotional processing speed of visual stimuli: The influence of facial expressions intensities
title_full Olfactory interference on the emotional processing speed of visual stimuli: The influence of facial expressions intensities
title_fullStr Olfactory interference on the emotional processing speed of visual stimuli: The influence of facial expressions intensities
title_full_unstemmed Olfactory interference on the emotional processing speed of visual stimuli: The influence of facial expressions intensities
title_short Olfactory interference on the emotional processing speed of visual stimuli: The influence of facial expressions intensities
title_sort olfactory interference on the emotional processing speed of visual stimuli: the influence of facial expressions intensities
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9113595/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35580112
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264261
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