Abstrakt
Many socially living species are able to perceive chemical cues to the emotional states of their conspecifics. Similarly, it was shown that humans are to some extent able to recognize, distinguish and judge hedonic quality of odours of other individuals who have been experiencing various affective states predominantly in fear, happy or stressful contexts.
On the other hand, often it is difficult to identify specific affective contexts in which the odour has been sampled. Furthermore, in the following studies it was found that exposure to odour samples collected in stressful situations affect cognitive functioning and behaviour (e. g., startle response and level of anxiety increase, higher risk-taking behaviour or sensory bias in the perception of another person) of people exposed to such odours, although individuals may not be aware of what the odour refers to or may be perceived on subliminal level.
This is further supported by the research into the changes in the brain activity following perception of odours sampled in various affective states. Moreover, among the affective states which may influence the body odour belongs also emotions accompanying competition, more specifically, the emotions connected to winning or losing (for instance, pride, sadness etc.).
The main aim of this paper is to review the current body of evidence about perception of emotion-related body odours in humans and interpret the findings of the relevant studies, point out the shortcomings in the present research (i. e., using verbal labels of the emotional states, separating and defining particular emotional states) and suggest new avenues to carry on in this promising and fruitful area (e.g. broaden the set of studied affective states and psychophysical responses of individuals exposed to these emotion-related body odours).