The Scent of Collaboration: Exploring the Effect of Smell on Social Interactions

The Scent of Collaboration: Exploring the Effect of Smell on Social Interactions

Mehrotra, S. (TU Delft Interactive Intelligence)
Brocker, Anke (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule)
Obrist, Marianna (University College London)
Borchers, Jan (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule)

2022

Social interactions are multisensory experiences. However, it is not well understood how technology-mediated smell can support social interactions, especially in collaborative tasks. To explore its effect on collaboration, we asked eleven pairs of users to work together on a writing task while wearing an interactive jewellery designed to emit scent in a controlled fashion. In a within-subjects experiment, participants were asked to collaboratively write a story about a standardized visual stimulus while exposed to with scent and without scent conditions. We analyzed video recordings and written stories using a combination of methods from HCI, psychology, sociology, and human communication research. We observed differences in both participants’ communication and creation of insightful stories in the with scent condition. Furthermore, scent helped participants recover from communication breakdown even though they were unaware of it. We discuss the possible implications of our findings and the potential of technology-mediated scent for collaborative activities.

Olfactory Interfaces
Collaboration
social interactions
Smell
scent
necklace
Communication
IOWA Communication Record
ICR
SCORS-Global

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:0901c732-8db0-40e9-a0a2-5129fac5f1bc

https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519632

ACM DL

CHI EA '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

Institutional Repository

conference paper

© 2022 S. Mehrotra, Anke Brocker, Marianna Obrist, Jan Borchers