Thomas Hörberg leads an international project, trying to define and create a lexicon on odor descriptors.

When we talk about perceptions with language, we can use language with different levels of codability. This internatinal project is trying to find differences and similarities in codability of odor in different languages, and to create a lexicon of multicultural odor space.

Read the story on SU.se (Swedish)

Excerpt, translated by ChatGPT:

The researchers are collaborating with the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research and are currently collecting data on olfactory vocabulary from nearly 30 languages. In an initial phase, the researchers selected more than 400 different odors representative of various olfactory qualities. Based on this, they made a narrower selection of 60 odors. These odors, in the form of so-called scent pens, are currently being sent to 30 selected laboratories in different parts of the world, where participants will be asked to describe and rate the odors.

“The goal has been to create a selection that is as representative as possible. Some smells are strongly associated with, for example, the smell of lemon, while others may not be as strongly linked to everyday objects.”

The material will provide the researchers with a much larger range and variation of languages, as well as more reliable results, since they are now using actual odors.

“The fact that we will also map the perceptual properties of the odors makes it much easier to explore how people in different cultures experience them. You could say that we will be compiling a kind of multicultural odor space,” says Thomas Hörberg.

People from different parts of the world will contribute to compiling this odor space by providing various evaluations of the smells. Based on the odor space and the participants’ descriptions of the odors, the researchers plan to compile a cross-cultural odor lexicon that can easily be translated between different languages. The olfactory vocabularies of different languages will be able to be compared systematically. This will provide new knowledge about the interplay between language, culture, and how we perceive smells.