Odor emoticon: An olfactory application that conveys emotions

Olfaction is an associative and emotional sense. The brain processes odors together with internal states, and odor-related memories contain strong emotional contents. This study focuses on people's emotional interpretations of odors, and proposes an olfactory application that uses odors as emoticons to convey emotions. This application offers an olfactory route for emotion communication, which can enhance communication experiences. Nine odor emoticons were designed, and validated through experiments. The effects of odor emoticons were also examined. A prototype system-Olfacticon-that emits odor emoticons was developed and applied in two contexts: online text chatting and voicemail receiving. Results suggested that odor emoticons induced more chatting, were easy to use, and helped participants perceive and convey emotions.