Lavender smells calming; peppermint smells refreshing. Do these impressions translate directly into an ability to avoid missing rapidly presented information?
Ryan Hackländer and colleagues tested earlier research suggesting that scent changes attention over short time intervals, using three experiments with different presentation methods. The study appeared online in 2024 and in a 2025 journal issue. Its central question was whether lavender and peppermint differed in how often people missed a second target.
An “attentional blink” without closing the eyes
Letters and numbers appeared one after another at the same screen location. Participants had to remember and report two numbers embedded among 18 letters. The interval from the appearance of one symbol to the next was 0.1 seconds.
After correctly detecting the first number, people have more difficulty reporting a second number that follows within a particular short interval. This is called the attentional blink. Rather than eyelid movement, it concerns a lapse in attention while processing information arriving in quick succession.
The study varied the interval between the two numbers. In particular, the difference in second-target accuracy at intervals of 0.3 and 0.5 seconds served as an index of the blink. These values included only trials in which the first number was reported correctly.
Earlier research had reported a larger attentional blink with peppermint than with lavender. The idea is that narrowly focused attention consumes too many resources on the first target, leaving the second unprocessed. Thus, stronger concentration does not simply predict better performance in this task.
Three ways of changing how quickly scents switched
A total of 117 university students participated in the three experiments. After excluding five because of equipment problems, the final analyses included 112. Whereas the earlier research dispersed scent in the room, this study briefly delivered it beneath the nose using an apparatus. Each participant experienced both lavender and peppermint.
Experiment 1 analyzed 34 participants. A scent was randomly selected on each trial and presented for about two seconds, starting before the number stream began. When no difference emerged, the researchers next considered whether the scent needed more time to act.
Experiment 2 included 39 participants. Trials presenting a scent alternated with trials without a new scent delivery. This tested for differences not only immediately after smelling but also after a little time had passed.
Experiment 3 also included 39 participants. To examine whether frequent switching might cancel an effect, it included blocks repeatedly presenting only one scent. In addition to lavender, peppermint, and mixed-order blocks containing both, there was a comparison block delivering air without fragrance.
Targets were missed, but scent type made no clear difference
None of the three experiments found a statistically clear difference in attentional blink between lavender and peppermint. In Experiment 1, for example, the drop in second-target accuracy was similar: about 12 percentage points for lavender and 11 for peppermint.
An analysis pooling the three experiments likewise showed the typical pattern of difficulty detecting the second target, but no confirmed difference by scent. This makes it unlikely that the lack of a scent difference simply reflected a task that failed to work.
Separate tests checked whether participants could distinguish the two odors, and performance exceeded chance in every experiment. Experiment 3 also measured mood pleasantness and arousal, but found no evidence that the two scents produced different changes.
How should differences from air alone be interpreted?
Not every comparison was null. In Experiment 3, attentional blink was smaller when the two scent blocks were averaged than in the air-only block. There was also a different effect: first-target accuracy was higher with air alone than with peppermint.
However, everyone completed the air-only block first to avoid carryover from earlier scent exposure. This design cannot separate scent presence from task order. These findings were also unexpected, and the authors urge caution rather than an immediate mechanistic interpretation. They do not suffice to conclude that both scents improved target detection.
Can a scent’s name determine its effect on attention?
The researchers reconsidered explanations that classify scents as arousing or calming. Changing the time after scent delivery and the duration of exposure to the same scent still produced no lavender–peppermint difference. They therefore question the idea that either scent has a fixed attentional effect shared by everyone.
Instead, they suggest that associations with past experiences and expectations about a scent’s effects may help explain differences between studies. People differ, for example, in whether lavender reminds them of relaxing situations. But personal associations were not established as the cause of these results; this remains an explanation for future testing.
The replication did not use exactly the same conditions as the earlier study. Ambient scent differs from a brief apparatus-delivered odor, and participants here were also instructed to inhale at an auditory cue. The sample consisted of university students, predominantly women, and the outcome was this number task. The study does not rule out effects on everyday concentration as a whole or effects of all scents.
Summary
Three experiments varying scent presentation and timing did not reproduce a difference in attentional blink between lavender and peppermint. Some differences from the unscented condition likewise do not provide firm evidence that scent reduces missed targets.
An important conclusion is not to assume that a scent has a fixed attentional effect identical for everyone. To use scent to support attention, researchers need to examine which factors affect which processes, including personal experience and expectations. The authors recommend studies that control scent-delivery timing and compare conditions within the same people.
References
Hackländer, R., Baess, P., & Bermeitinger, C. (2025). Smells like … no evidence that odors influence the attentional blink. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 87, 458–479. Published online: December 19, 2024. DOI: 10.3758/s13414-024-02986-4 / Full text / Published PDF.
Original article license: CC BY 4.0. © The Author(s) 2024.
