RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Predicting Odor Pleasantness from Odorant Structure: Pleasantness as a Reflection of the Physical World
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 10015
OP 10023
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1158-07.2007
VO 27
IS 37
A1 Rehan M. Khan
A1 Chung-Hay Luk
A1 Adeen Flinker
A1 Amit Aggarwal
A1 Hadas Lapid
A1 Rafi Haddad
A1 Noam Sobel
YR 2007
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/27/37/10015.abstract
AB Although it is agreed that physicochemical features of molecules determine their perceived odor, the rules governing this relationship remain unknown. A significant obstacle to such understanding is the high dimensionality of features describing both percepts and molecules. We applied a statistical method to reduce dimensionality in both odor percepts and physicochemical descriptors for a large set of molecules. We found that the primary axis of perception was odor pleasantness, and critically, that the primary axis of physicochemical properties reflected the primary axis of olfactory perception. This allowed us to predict the pleasantness of novel molecules by their physicochemical properties alone. Olfactory perception is strongly shaped by experience and learning. However, our findings suggest that olfactory pleasantness is also partially innate, corresponding to a natural axis of maximal discriminability among biologically relevant molecules.