Can a Different Fragrance Make the Same Fabric Feel Softer?

Fabric softness seems like something we can judge with our fingers. Yet the odor we smell at the same time can slightly alter that judgment.

In two experiments reported in 2006, fabrics given the same treatment were rated toward the softer end of the scale with lemon or lavender aromas than with an animal-like odor. The key point is that information arriving through the nose, as well as the fabric’s physical properties, may contribute to judgments of texture. The results did not, however, show that adding a pleasant aroma necessarily makes fabric feel softer than it does without fragrance.

How is information from the nose and fingers combined?

The team investigated interactions between two different senses: smell and touch. Simply asking whether people like a scented fabric could elicit a preference for its fragrance rather than its texture. The researchers therefore used several fabrics with different textures and had the same people repeatedly rate each fabric’s softness or roughness.

In the first experiment, aroma was delivered to the nose by a device separate from the fabric; in the second, the fabric itself was scented. This also allowed the team to examine whether judgments changed only when the odor came from the same object, and whether the effect appeared with a different fragrance.

The first experiment: 17 people touch fabrics without seeing them

Seventeen untrained adults participated in Experiment 1. Cotton fabrics were treated with aminosilicone, fabric conditioner, or starch, or left untreated, creating four different textures. Aminosilicone-treated fabric was the softest sample, and starch-treated fabric was the roughest.

The fabrics were mounted on a computer-controlled rotating apparatus and hidden behind a curtain. Participants rubbed each fabric between the thumb and index finger of their right hand and rated it on a scale from 1, soft, to 20, rough. The design prevented them from inferring texture from appearance.

Meanwhile, participants were presented with a lemon fragrance, an animal-like fragrance, or odorless air at the nose. Odor presentation began 2.5 seconds before they touched the fabric and continued until they finished rating it. On each trial, they first classified the odor as pleasant, unpleasant, or absent, then evaluated texture, ensuring that they also attended to the aroma.

The four fabric types were combined with the three odor conditions in randomized order, with each participant completing 144 trials.

Lower roughness ratings with lemon than with an animal-like odor

Participants clearly distinguished the four fabric types. Alongside those differences, a small effect of odor condition was also observed.

Mean roughness ratings across the fabrics were 10.64 with lemon and 11.08 with the animal-like odor. Fabric was rated significantly toward the softer end of the scale in the lemon condition. The odorless-air mean was 10.79, which did not differ significantly from either lemon or the animal-like odor.

The difference was about 0.44 points on a 20-point scale. It was a modest shift in ratings of the same fabrics, rather than a change large enough to override the substantial differences between fabric types. There was also no significant interaction showing that the fragrance effect varied clearly with fabric treatment.

Next: 40 people evaluate fabrics that are themselves scented

A separate group of 40 people participated in Experiment 2. The researchers used only the softest, aminosilicone-treated fabric and the roughest, starch-treated fabric, combining them with lavender fragrance, animal-like fragrance, or no fragrance.

Fragrance was applied to a corner of each fabric, and neither participants nor experimenters touched the treated area. Blindfolded participants were not told the fragrance names. They rubbed the fabrics with their fingers and evaluated odor pleasantness and texture. This time, a roughness scale from 1 to 10 was used to make it easier to remember and report a response.

Each combination was presented five times in randomized order, for 30 trials in total. Changing the fragrance from lemon to lavender and moving its source from a device near the nose to the fabric made the conditions closer to everyday encounters with fabric.

The animal-like odor felt rougher than lavender or no fragrance

In Experiment 2, participants again clearly distinguished the soft and rough fabrics. Mean ratings by odor condition were 5.15 for lavender, 5.26 for no fragrance, and 5.54 for the animal-like odor.

Fabric with the animal-like odor was rated significantly rougher than both lavender-scented fabric and unscented fabric. The difference between lavender and no fragrance, however, was not significant.

Rather than concluding that a pleasant fragrance softened the feel of unscented fabric, it is more accurate to say that, at least in Experiment 2, the usually unpleasant animal-like odor was associated with rougher ratings than the other two conditions. Including an unscented comparison helps identify where the difference between aromas appeared.

Can fragrance preference explain everything?

On many trials, lemon and lavender were classified as pleasant and the animal-like odor as unpleasant. Reanalyzing the data according to each person’s pleasantness classifications produced broadly similar rating patterns.

However, individual fragrance preferences did not always align with changes in fabric ratings. For example, some participants in Experiment 1 predominantly rated lemon as unpleasant or the animal-like odor as pleasant, but they too tended to rate fabric toward the softer end of the scale with lemon.

The authors consider several explanations, including associations learned through everyday detergents and fabric conditioners, a link between pleasant smells and softness, and integration of the sensory information itself. These experiments alone cannot fully distinguish a change in the texture people experience from a change in their criteria for responding.

Rating differences appeared even when the source of the odor changed

Differences between odor conditions appeared both in Experiment 1, where a separate device supplied the aroma, and in Experiment 2, where it came from the fabric. Thus, an odor originating in exactly the same location as the fabric was apparently not essential for the observed effect.

However, the experiments also differed in fragrance, participants, rating scale, and presentation procedure, so this was not a comparison that isolated location alone. The absence of a significant difference between the effects in the two experiments also does not prove that the influence is identical at every location.

An analysis including sex was also performed in Experiment 2, but no significant differences between men and women were found in texture ratings or the influence of fragrance. These results belong to the specific conditions in which people explicitly classified odors and judged fabric texture.

Summary

In two experiments involving touching fabrics without seeing them, lemon or lavender conditions produced ratings toward the softer end of the scale compared with an animal-like odor. In Experiment 2 in particular, fabric with the animal-like odor was rated rougher than unscented fabric, while lavender and no fragrance did not differ significantly.

This influence appeared both when fragrance was delivered separately to the nose and when it was applied to the fabric. Information from the nose slightly shifted ratings while the differences in the fabrics’ own textures remained distinguishable. The study helps us understand the experience of texture as involving several senses, rather than the fingers alone.

The acknowledgments state that author M. L. Demattè received a grant from the University of Trento, and that Unilever Research and Quest International provided the fragrances used in testing.

References

Demattè ML, Sanabria D, Sugarman R, Spence C. (2006). Cross-Modal Interactions Between Olfaction and Touch. Chemical Senses, 31(4), 291–300. Original research article.