Monell Chemical Senses Center, 3500 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3308, USA.
Chem Senses. 2011 Jan;36(1):19-27. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjq087. Epub 2010 Oct 7.
The hypothesis of this experiment was that humans in an anxious state compared with a nonanxious state are able to increase anxiety levels in other humans via their body odors. Specifically, we hypothesized that male chemosensory anxiety signals compared with neutral chemosignals increase state anxiety of female subjects. Thirteen male subjects participated in 2 different sweat donation sessions: chemosignals were collected during participation in a high rope course (anxiety condition) and in an ergometer workout (neutral condition). State and trait anxiety were evaluated in 20 female odor recipients using Spielberger's state-trait anxiety inventory in a double-blind design. Comparison of state anxiety of odor donors between control and anxiety condition differed significantly indicating that our model of anxiety induction successfully led to the expected change in emotion. Comparison of state anxiety of odor recipients showed a trend toward higher state anxiety in the anxiety condition compared with the neutral condition after 5 min of odor exposure. After 20 min of odor exposure, state anxiety of female subjects was significantly higher during the perception of sweat collected during the anxiety condition in comparison with the perception of sweat collected during the neutral condition. This experiment gives evidence that male anxiety chemosignals compared with neutral chemosignals are capable of inducing an increased state anxiety in female subjects.
本实验的假设是，与非焦虑状态相比，处于焦虑状态的人类能够通过体味使其他人感到焦虑。具体而言，我们假设与中性化学信号相比，男性化学感觉焦虑信号会增加女性被试的状态焦虑。13 名男性参与者参加了 2 个不同的汗液捐献阶段：在参与高空绳索课程（焦虑条件）和测力计锻炼（中性条件）期间收集化学信号。在双盲设计中，20 名女性气味接受者使用 Spielberger 的状态-特质焦虑量表评估状态和特质焦虑。与焦虑条件相比，在对照和焦虑条件下，气味供体的状态焦虑比较差异显著，表明我们的焦虑诱导模型成功地导致了预期的情绪变化。状态焦虑的比较表明，在气味暴露 5 分钟后，与中性条件相比，焦虑条件下的状态焦虑有升高的趋势。在 20 分钟的气味暴露后，与感知中性条件下收集的汗液相比，女性在感知焦虑条件下收集的汗液时，状态焦虑明显更高。本实验证明，与中性化学信号相比，男性焦虑化学信号能够引起女性被试的状态焦虑增加。
