Voice attractiveness: Influence of stimulus duration and type

Voice attractiveness is a relatively new area of research. Some aspects of the methodology used in this domain deserve particular attention. Especially, the duration of voice samples is often neglected as a factor and happens to be manipulated without the perceptual consequences of these manipulations being known. Moreover, the type of voice stimulus varies from a single vowel to complex sentences. The aim of this experiment was to investigate the extent to which stimulus duration (nonmanipulated vs. normalized) and type (vowel vs. word) influence perceived voice attractiveness. Twenty-seven male and female raters made attractiveness judgments of 30 male and female voice samples. Voice samples included a single vowel /a/, a three-vowel series /i a o/, and the French word "bonjour” (i.e., "hello”). These samples were presented in three conditions: nonmanipulated, shortened, and lengthened duration. Duration manipulation was performed using the pitch synchronous overlap and add (PSOLA) algorithm implemented in Praat. Results for the effect of stimulus type showed that word length samples were more attractive to the opposite sex than vowels. Results for the effect of duration showed that the nonmanipulated sound sample duration was not predictive of perceived attractiveness. Duration manipulation, on the other hand, altered perceived attractiveness for the lengthening condition. In particular, there was a linear decrease in attractiveness as a function of modification percentage (especially for the word, as compared with the vowels). Recommendations for voice sample normalization with the PSOLA algorithm are thus to prefer shortening over lengthening and, if not possible, to limit the extent of duration manipulation—for example, by normalizing to the mean sample duratio

Variability of Affective Responses to Odors: Culture, Gender, and Olfactory Knowledge

Emotion and odor scales (EOS) measuring odor-related affective feelings were recently developed for three different countries (Switzerland, United Kingdom, and Singapore). The first aim of this study was to investigate gender and cultural differences in verbal affective response to odors, measured with EOS and the usual pleasantness scale. To better understand this variability, the second aim was to investigate the link between affective reports and olfactory knowledge (familiarity and identification). Responses of 772 participants smelling 56-59 odors were collected in the three countries. Women rated odors as more intense and identified them better in all countries, but no reliable sex differences were found for verbal affective responses to odors. Disgust-related feelings revealed odor-dependent sex differences, due to sex differences in identification and categorization. Further, increased odor knowledge was related to more positive affects as reported with pleasantness and odor-related feeling evaluations, which can be related to top-down influences on odor representation. These top-down influences were thought, for example, to relate to beliefs about odor properties or to categorization (edible vs. nonedible). Finally, the link between odor knowledge and olfactory affect was generally asymmetrical and significant only for pleasant odors, not for unpleasant ones that seemed to be more resistant to cognitive influences. This study, for the first time using emotional scales that are appropriate to the olfactory domain, brings new insights into the variability of affective responses to odors and its relationship to odor knowledg

Affective semantic space of scents. Towards a universal scale to measure self-reported odor-related feelings

Measuring self-reported affective feelings to odors and odorous products is a recent challenge for the food and cosmetic field, requiring the development of suited instruments. This paper finalizes a line of studies aimed at developing Emotion and Odor Scales (EOSs) in several cultures. Previously available for Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Singapore, new EOSs are presented here for the United States, Brazil, and China. These scales, developed with 350-540 participants per country, have been conceived to allow the measurement of affective feelings (e.g., emotions, moods, attitudes) in response to a wide range of odors including pleasant and unpleasant, food and non-food ones. Several affective categories were recurrent in the countries examined here: Disgust/Irritation, Happiness/Well-being, Sensuality/Desire, Energy, but also Soothing/Peacefulness and Hunger/Thirst, indicating a potential link between emotion and adaptive universal functions of olfaction such as danger avoidance, ingestion and social communication. For these common categories, similarity in affective responses generally reflected geographic proximity indicating also a strong influence of cultural aspects. Exceptions to this pattern were Singapore and China, with affective responses of Singaporeans being closer to those of Europeans. This series of studies allows us to propose a universal scale (UniGEOS) that might be used in the future for examination of other cultures. This scale comprises affective categories that we found to be culturally shared, enclosing the most frequently shared affective terms, and several culture-specific aspects that may be relevant in other cultures. This tool can be used in its complete form (25 affective terms) or as a short version with nine categories entitled Unpleasant feelings, Happiness/Delight, Sensuality/Desire, Energy, Soothing/ Peacefulness, Hunger/Thirst, Interest, Nostalgia and Spirituality

THE EMOTIONAL POWER OF ODORS: IDENTIFYING THE DIMENSIONS REFERRING TO FEELINGS PRODUCED BY ODORS

Abstract There is broad literature on the emotional effect of odors but, so far, little concern with the precise mechanism underlying the elicitation of emotions via olfactory stimuli. One reason for this neglect might be the lack of answers to a major question that underlie any research on odors and emotions: What exactly are the emotions associated to odors and how are they organised? The major issue addressed in the present paper concerns the nature of the verbal labels that refer to the specific states produced by odors. We conducted a series of studies in order to examine which terms are best suited to describe the feelings associated to odors and autobiographical memories. In Study 1, the relevance of a broad list of candidate affect terms to describe odor-related feelings was examined by two groups of participants with different level of knowledge about odors. In study 2, the most relevant terms retained from study 1 were evaluated with actual odorant samples and the data were submitted to a series of exploratory factor analyses to reduce the set of variables to a smaller set of summary-scales and to get a preliminary sense of the differentiation of affects elicited by odors. The Study 3 replicated Study 2 with a larger and more representative sample of odorant samples and participants. Overall, the findings point to a structure of affective responses to odors that differs from the more traditional taxonomies of emotion such as posited by discrete emotion or dimensional theories and suggest that affective states elicited by odors are structured around few dimensions that clearly reflect the role of olfaction in social interactions, danger prevention and arousal/relaxation sensations

Two New Loci for Body-Weight Regulation Identified in a Joint Analysis of Genome-Wide Association Studies for Early-Onset Extreme Obesity in French and German Study Groups

Meta-analyses of population-based genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in adults have recently led to the detection of new genetic loci for obesity. Here we aimed to discover additional obesity loci in extremely obese children and adolescents. We also investigated if these results generalize by estimating the effects of these obesity loci in adults and in population-based samples including both children and adults. We jointly analysed two GWAS of 2,258 individuals and followed-up the best, according to lowest p-values, 44 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) from 21 genomic regions in 3,141 individuals. After this DISCOVERY step, we explored if the findings derived from the extremely obese children and adolescents (10 SNPs from 5 genomic regions) generalized to (i) the population level and (ii) to adults by genotyping another 31,182 individuals (GENERALIZATION step). Apart from previously identified FTO, MC4R, and TMEM18, we detected two new loci for obesity: one in SDCCAG8 (serologically defined colon cancer antigen 8 gene; p = 1.85610 x 10(-8) in the DISCOVERY step) and one between TNKS (tankyrase, TRF1-interacting ankyrin-related ADP-ribose polymerase gene) and MSRA (methionine sulfoxide reductase A gene; p = 4.84 x 10(-7)), the latter finding being limited to children and adolescents as demonstrated in the GENERALIZATION step. The odds ratios for early-onset obesity were estimated at similar to 1.10 per risk allele for both loci. Interestingly, the TNKS/MSRA locus has recently been found to be associated with adult waist circumference. In summary, we have completed a meta-analysis of two GWAS which both focus on extremely obese children and adolescents and replicated our findings in a large followed-up data set. We observed that genetic variants in or near FTO, MC4R, TMEM18, SDCCAG8, and TNKS/MSRA were robustly associated with early-onset obesity. We conclude that the currently known major common variants related to obesity overlap to a substantial degree between children and adults

Early onset obesity and adrenal insufficiency associated with a homozygous POMC mutation

Isolated hypocortisolism due to ACTH deficiency is a rare condition that can be caused by homozygous or compound heterozygous mutations in the gene encoding proopiomelanocortin (POMC). Loss of function mutations of POMC gene typically results in adrenal insufficiency, obesity and red hair. We describe an 18 month old Hispanic female with congenital adrenal insufficiency, a novel POMC mutation and atypical clinical features. The patient presented at the age of 9 months with hypoglycemia and the endocrine evaluation resulted in a diagnosis of ACTH deficiency. She developed extreme weight gain prompting sequence analysis of POMC, which revealed a homozygous c.231C > A change which is predicted to result in a premature termination codon. The case we report had obesity, hypocortisolism but lacked red hair which is typical for subjects with POMC mutations. Mutations of POMC should be considered in individuals with severe early onset obesity and adrenal insufficiency even when they lack the typical pigmentary phenotype

When Flexibility Is Stable: Implicit Long-Term Shaping of Olfactory Preferences

Preferences are traditionally assumed to be stable. However, empirical evidence such as preference modulation following choices calls this assumption into question. The evolution of such postchoice preference over long time spans, even when choices have been explicitly forgotten, has so far not been studied. In two experiments, we investigated this question by using a variant of the free choice paradigm: In a first session, participants evaluated the pleasantness of a number of odors. We then formed pairs of similarly rated odors, and asked participants to choose their favorite, for each pair. Participants were then presented with all odors again, and asked for another pleasantness rating. In a second session 1 week later, a third pleasantness rating was obtained, and participants were again asked to choose between the same options. Results suggested postchoice preference modulation immediately and 1 week after choice for both chosen and rejected options, even when choices were not explicitly remembered. A third experiment, using another paradigm, confirmed that choice can have a modulatory impact on preferences, and that this modulation can be long-lasting. Taken together, these findings suggest that although preferences appear to be flexible because they are modulated by choices, this modulation also appears to be stable over time and even without explicit recollection of the choice. These results bring a new argument to the idea that postchoice preference modulation could rely on implicit mechanisms, and are consistent with the recent proposal that cognitive dissonance reduction could to some extent be implicit