Differences and similarities in the perception of everyday odors. A Japanese-German cross-cultural study.

To investigate the influence of experience on odor perception the responses of 40 Japanese and 44 age-matched German women to everyday odorants were compared. Subjects were presented with six 'Japanese,' six 'European' and six 'international' odorants and asked to rate them on intensity, familiarity, pleasantness and edibility, and to describe associations elicited by them, and if possible to name them. Significant differences were found between the two populations on all measures, with a close association of pleasantness ratings and edibility judgments suggesting the particular influence of eating habits on odor perception. Positive correlations between familiarity and pleasantness, strength of hedonic judgment and intensity, and familiarity and intensity were also found in both groups and for most individuals. The generality of these findings was supported by the results obtained from testing 40 Mexican women with the same odorants.