TNO Soesterberg, Netherlands ; Department of Information and Computing Sciences, University Utrecht Utrecht, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2013 Nov 26;4:883. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00883. eCollection 2013.
In the current study participants explored a desktop virtual environment (VE) representing a suburban neighborhood with signs of public disorder (neglect, vandalism, and crime), while being exposed to either room air (control group), or subliminal levels of tar (unpleasant; typically associated with burned or waste material) or freshly cut grass (pleasant; typically associated with natural or fresh material) ambient odor. They reported all signs of disorder they noticed during their walk together with their associated emotional response. Based on recent evidence that odors reflexively direct visual attention to (either semantically or affectively) congruent visual objects, we hypothesized that participants would notice more signs of disorder in the presence of ambient tar odor (since this odor may bias attention to unpleasant and negative features), and less signs of disorder in the presence of ambient grass odor (since this odor may bias visual attention toward the vegetation in the environment and away from the signs of disorder). Contrary to our expectations the results provide no indication that the presence of an ambient odor affected the participants' visual attention for signs of disorder or their emotional response. However, the paradigm used in present study does not allow us to draw any conclusions in this respect. We conclude that a closer affective, semantic, or spatiotemporal link between the contents of a desktop VE and ambient scents may be required to effectively establish diagnostic associations that guide a user's attention. In the absence of these direct links, ambient scent may be more diagnostic for the physical environment of the observer as a whole than for the particular items in that environment (or, in this case, items represented in the VE).
在当前的研究中，参与者探索了一个代表郊区社区的桌面虚拟环境（VE），该环境有公共秩序混乱的迹象（忽视、破坏和犯罪），同时暴露于室内空气（对照组）或亚嗅水平的焦油（不愉快；通常与燃烧或废物材料相关）或新割草的气味（宜人；通常与自然或新鲜材料相关）环境气味中。他们报告了在散步过程中注意到的所有混乱迹象以及与之相关的情绪反应。基于最近的证据表明，气味会反射性地将视觉注意力引导至（语义上或情感上）与视觉对象一致的方向，我们假设参与者在存在环境焦油气味时会注意到更多的混乱迹象（因为这种气味可能会使注意力偏向不愉快和负面特征），而在存在环境草气味时则会注意到更少的混乱迹象（因为这种气味可能会使视觉注意力偏向环境中的植被，而远离混乱迹象）。与我们的预期相反，结果表明，环境气味的存在并没有影响参与者对混乱迹象的视觉注意或情绪反应。然而，目前研究中使用的范式不允许我们在这方面得出任何结论。我们得出的结论是，桌面 VE 的内容和环境气味之间需要更紧密的情感、语义或时空联系，才能有效地建立诊断关联，引导用户的注意力。在缺乏这些直接联系的情况下，环境气味可能更能诊断观察者的整个物理环境，而不是该环境中的特定物品（或者在这种情况下，代表 VE 中的物品）。
