Is it possible to smell emotions?

According to a recent study carried out by researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, it is possible for people to smell emotions such as fear or disgust through excreted chemical signals. Smelling those chemosignals (a type of pheromone) provokes the same kind of emotional response: smelling disgust provokes facial expressions indicative of disgust, for example.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, consisted of male participants who had to watch movies that either induced feelings of fear or disgust. Two days before watching the movie, the participants were asked to be very careful about smell contamination, which means that they could not eat smelly foods, smoke, drink alcohol, or use detergents.

After the male participants watched the fear-or-disgust-inducing movies, the researchers gathered samples of sweat from them. Then, researches gathered two groups of female participants to do a visual task while being exposed to the men’s sweat samples. As they—the female participants—did the task, their facial expressions and eye movements were monitored.

What were the results? Researchers found that the women’s facial expressions were indicative of the kind of sweat sample they smelled. In other words, when one group smelled the sweat gathered from men watching the fear-inducing movie, they produced facial expressions indicative of fear, and when the other group smelled the sweat from the men who watched the disgust-inducing movie, they produced facial expressions indicative of disgust.

Another recent study had already shown that it is possible to smell the emotions of other people. This study, conducted by researchers at Rice University and presented in The Association for Psychological Science in 2010, found that people in close romantic relationships are able to smell emotions such as fear and happiness in each other.

According to Denise Chen, a psychologist at Rice University, familiarity with a partner enhances detection of emotional cues in that person’s smell.

Many people claim to have a sensitive nose. Are you one of them? Can you “smell” your close ones’ emotions?