Behavioral/mood change vs. perception of odor quality

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I have always had a problem with the use of perception of odor quality to infer behavioral responses to putative human pheromones (-none = urinous, offensive; -dienone = similar to -none; -rone = smells like sex; -nol = musky, light). Why do some researchers (like James) continue to use perceptual quality as support? Anyway, below is an abstract that might be interesting...

Physiol Behav 1999 Dec 1-15;68(1-2):241-50

Rapid mood change and human odors. Chen D, Haviland-Jones J.Rutgers University, NJ, USA. chen@monell.org

We demonstrate an immediate effect of airborne chemicals on human moods. We collected six groups of underarm odors, respectively, from five prepubertal girls, five prepubertal boys, five college women, five college men, five older women, and five older men. In addition, we collected odors from homes of these donors, making them a seventh group of odor. Three hundred and eight odor observers ranked the seven groups of odors of little girls, little boys, college women, college men, older women, older men, and homes by their perceived pleasantness, intensity, perceived masculinity, and age of the donors, among other qualities. On a separate task, the same odor observers assessed their depressive, hostile, and positive moods twice, once before and once a few minutes after they sniffed one of the above seven groups of odors. Exposure to underarm odors for under 2 min led to significant, rapid, and small changes in the nonclinical depressive mood of the odor observers. The mood changes were independent of the observers\' perceptions of odor qualities. Odors perceived as unpleasant and intense were as likely to relieve a depressive mood as were pleasant odors.

[jvkohl]

Truth,

Chemicals are perceived whether referred to as odors or as pheromones. It is only the concentration that varies with perceptual abilities. So, when experimenting, I used a concentration of -rone that was perceptable to most people (same as other researchers did with -none and -ol). I may have mentioned that conscious perception is a problem in defining exactly what a pheromone is, or isn\'t. There\'s been a lot of recent discussion on this at conventions, and Martha McClintock wrote about it in a recently published book chapter. But I don\'t expect resolve any time soon. George Preti thinks that the LH response should be included in the definition--or at least that it should be used to classify any chemical as a pheromone. Berliner\'s group was hoping that vomeropherin would become popular. Martha proposes that--in some cases--vassanas is the best term (recently adapted by her for use in discussions).

James

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Hi truth,
did you read the response of Black from the Department of Psychology, Bishop\'s University, Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada? Thinking, that there\'s a lack of evidence.

Here\'s the very short abstract of his article:

\"Chen and Haviland-Jones claim if you\'re down/You needn\'t be depressed and mope around/Check out Granny\'s smell/It\'ll make you feel well/One problem: no supporting evidence was found.\"