‘Play the fragrance’: Designing musical soundscapes to match fragrances based on olfactory-auditory crossmodal correspondences

Abstract

In recent years, numerous studies demonstrating the crossmodal correspondences between individual olfactory stimuli and both auditory and visual stimuli have been published. However, most commercial perfumes are more complex (both chemically and perceptually) than individual olfactory stimuli, incorporating designated top, middle, and base notes. What is more, it is unlikely that it will be possible to discriminate effectively at a population level between hedonic responses to, and rated intensity of, most commercial perfumes (given that they are deliberately created to be pleasant and to provide an intense and long-lasting scent). Perfumes, unlike other classes of olfactory stimuli, also tend to be strongly gendered (masculine, feminine, or occasionally unisex). As such, the matching of music to fine fragrance faces different challenges than when matching music to the aromas and flavours of food and drink (a much more common application domain for crossmodal correspondences research currently). In this review, we examine the emerging literature on crossmodal correspondences to assess whether empirical findings can provide any actionable insights when it comes to assisting those wishing to design music and soundscapes that, in any meaningful sense, translate a perfume into its auditory equivalent.