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neutral (neutral face). In a valid trial, the target is in the location of
the emotional cue; in an invalid trial, the target is in the location of
the neutral cue. Results shown that behavioral efficiency and event-
related P1, time-locked to target onset, were significantly increased
in valid trials as compared to invalid ones, independently of the
odor, indicating early attentional capture by emotional stimuli.
Moreover, a significant validity effect was also found in the
subsequent N1 component, but only for female participants in AND
condition. These results support the hypothesis that AND could
influence female brain processes responsible for early attentional
capture by emotional stimuli. Acknowledgements: This research
was supported by the Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, financed
by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (51NF40-
104897), hosted by the University of Geneva, and also funded by a
research grant from Firmenich, SA, to David Sander
and Patrik Vuilleumier.
#P141
POSTER SESSION IV:
CHEMICAL SIGNALING & BEHAVIOR;
PSYCHOPHYSICS; CHEMOSENSATION & DISEASE;
OLFACTION PERIPHERY; TASTE PERIPHERY
The smell of altruism: the putative human pheromone
4,16-androstadien-3-one makes people more generous in a
gender dependent manner
Valentina Perrotta
1
, Michele Graffeo
1
,
Nicolao Bonini
1
,
Jay A. Gottfried
2
1
University of Trento, Department of Cognitive Science and
Education Rovereto TN, Italy,
2
Northwestern University Feinberg
School of Medicine, Department of Neurology Chicago, IL, USA
A long series of studies showed that the putative human
pheromones influence cognitive processes such as attention,
emotional states and sexual behavior. For example, 4,16-
androstadien-3-one (AND) improves attention on emotional
information in women [1]. Our research expands the study of the
effects on pheromones on a different high-level cognitive process:
economic decision-making. In particular, we investigate if and how
the exposure to AND affects the decision to adopt fair behavior
(
e.g
., donation of money during a Dictator Game, a measure of
altruism). We know that AND increases mood in women [2] and we
expect that it drives them to adopt fair behaviors (
e.g.
, higher
amounts donate with the AND stimulation than in the control
condition). The experiment has a within subject design with 2
conditions of odor stimulation (650µMAND in Limonene,
Limonene only). The participants entered a non-scented room and
rated their mood on a 16 affective states scale [3]. A bottle of
fragrance was presented to the participants and they had to rate it
on intensity, pleasantness, unpleasantness, familiarity and
sensuality [4]. Then they filled the second mood questionnaire.
Then the Dictator Game was presented (42 trials). The participants
had to divide €8 with a person, shown in a picture [5]. At the end,
participants rated their mood. The results show a main odor effect
(Waldχ
2
(1)=3.85, p<.050), an odor by mood (Waldχ
2
(1)=4.27,
p<.039) and a sex by mood interaction on the donations
(Waldχ
2
(1)=8.08, p<.005). When women were exposed to AND
there was an increase in mood and donations (from M=€3.42 to
M
AND
=€3.68). In conclusion, our findings support the hypothesis
that AND influences high cognitive processes such as decision
making. Acknowledgements: Valentina Perrotta gratefully
acknowledges the financial support of the Provincia Autonoma di
Trento. Michele Graffeo acknowledges the financial support of the
Marie Curie grant post doc 2009 – Outgoing (project PEOCC),
from the Provincia Autonoma di Trento. REFERENCES: [1]
Hummer, T. A., & McClintock, M. K. (2009). Putative human
pheromone androstadienone attunes the mind specifically to
emotional information. Hormones and Behavior, 55, 548–559. [2]
Bensafi, M., Tsutsui, T., Khan, R., Levenson, R. W., & Sobel, N.
(2004b). Sniffing a human sex-steroid derived compound affects
mood and autonomic arousal in a dose-dependent manner.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, 29, 1290–1299. [3] Ekman, P., Freisen,
W. V., & Ancoli, S. (1980). Facial signs of emotional experience.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(1-sup-6), 1125–
1134. [4] Green, B. G., Dalton, P., Cowart, B., Shaffer, G., Rankin,
K., & Higgins, J. (1996). Evaluating the ‘Labeled Magnitude Scale’
for measuring sensations of taste and smell. Chemical Senses, 21,
323-334. [5] Tottenham, N., Tanaka, J., Leon, A. C., McCarry, T.,
Nurse, M., Hare, T. A., Marcus, D. J., Westerlund, A., Casey, B. J.,
& Nelson, C. A. (2009). The NimStim set of facial expressions:
judgments from untrained research participants. Psychiatry
Research, 168(3), 242–249.
#P142
POSTER SESSION IV:
CHEMICAL SIGNALING & BEHAVIOR;
PSYCHOPHYSICS; CHEMOSENSATION & DISEASE;
OLFACTION PERIPHERY; TASTE PERIPHERY
The smell of disgust and fear: specific emotional
chemosignalling of fear and disgust in humans
Monique A Smeets, Jasper H de Groot, Gun R Semin
Utrecht University Utrecht, Netherlands
Humans can communicate the emotion of fear from a sender to a
perceiver via chemical signals (Zhou & Chen, 2009), a process
which has been referred to as emotional contagion. But how
specific is this contagion: Can perceivers also
discriminate
between
two distinctive negative emotional states such as fear and disgust?
This question was answered by examining the function of
chemosignals in a framework furnished by embodied social
communication theory (Semin, 2007). We hypothesized that
specificity of emotional contagion is maintained during the
transmission of the sender’s chemosignals to the perceiver at the
perceptual and physiological level. Sweat was obtained from male
donors watching disgusting and fearful film clips. In a double-blind
experiment, we examined in a sample of 36 females facial
reactions, sensory regulation processes, and visual search in
response to pooled disgust sweat pads, fear pads and odorless pads
in a within-subjects design. We demonstrated that fear
chemosignals generated a fearful facial expression (facial
electromyography: medial frontalis activity,
p
<.01) and
sensory
acquisition
(increased sniff magnitude and eye scanning) while
disgust chemosignals evoked a disgusted facial expression (levator
labii activity,
p
<.001) and
sensory rejection
(decreased sniff
magnitude, detection sensitivity, and eye scanning). The
participants could not consciously discriminate between the sweat
samples. It was concluded that specificity of emotion during
emotional chemosignalling was maintained at both the perceptual
and physiological level. These findings suggest that emotional
chemosignals do not transmit just a general negative emotional
state, but that there is specificity both at the level of the
chemosignal as well as the level of perception of that signal.
Acknowledgements: Supported by a Utrecht University
Neuroscience and Cognition grant to Smeets and Semin
74 | AChemS Abstracts 2012
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