Research shows that male body odor plays an important role in women's mate choice and that olfactory abilities are associated with women's sexual functioning. What remains unclear is what types of partner's odor actually shape women's experience during intimate activities. This study therefore explored women's experience associated with the partner's various odors and investigated how they affect women's intimate and sexual encounters. We performed semi-structured individual interviews with 20 single women and 20 women in a long-term relationship. Thematic analysis revealed four key natural odor types of the partner: body odor, sweat, genital odor, and semen odor. Further, we have identified three main types of fragrance odor (cologne, shower gel, and laundry agents) and investigated their perception in both intimate (hugging, kissing, cuddling, lying side by side) and sexual (intercourse, oral sex, ejaculation) contexts. Both partner's natural odor and fragrance affected women's emotional state (ranging from pleasant to unpleasant) and behavioral response (ranging from approach to avoidance of partner). Women's odor perception was frequently context-dependent, so that even mostly negatively perceived odors (e.g., semen, genital odor) were often accepted as part of sexual encounter. Finally, women's perception was negatively modified by partner's specific sweat (after workday, workout, or when the partner is ill) during intimate encounters. Our results highlight the complexity and interindividual variability of partner's odor perception.

• MeSH
• čich fyziologie   MeSH
• čichová percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• interpersonální vztahy MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• odoranty * MeSH
• pot MeSH
• sexuální chování * psychologie   MeSH
• sexuální partneři * psychologie   MeSH
• sperma MeSH
• Check Tag
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH

Olfactory and cognitive performance share neural correlates profoundly affected by physiological aging. However, whether odor identification and discrimination scores predict global cognitive status and executive function in healthy older people with intact cognition is unclear. Therefore, in the present study, we set out to elucidate these links in a convenience sample of 204 independently living, cognitively intact healthy Czech adults aged 77.4 ± 8.7 (61-97 years) over two waves of data collection (one-year interval). We used the Czech versions of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) to evaluate global cognition, and the Prague Stroop Test (PST), Trail Making Test (TMT), and several verbal fluency (VF) tests to assess executive function. As a subsidiary aim, we aimed to examine the contribution of olfactory performance towards achieving a MoCA score above vs. below the published cut-off value. We found that the MoCA scores exhibited moderate associations with both odor identification and discrimination. Furthermore, odor identification significantly predicted PST C and C/D scores. Odor discrimination significantly predicted PST C/D, TMT B/A, and standardized composite VF scores. Our findings demonstrate that olfaction, on the one hand, and global cognition and executive function, on the other, are related even in healthy older people.

• MeSH
• čich fyziologie   MeSH
• čichová percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• diskriminace (psychologie) * fyziologie   MeSH
• exekutivní funkce * fyziologie   MeSH
• kognice * fyziologie   MeSH
• kognitivní dysfunkce patofyziologie   diagnóza   MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• neuropsychologické testy MeSH
• odoranty * MeSH
• senioři nad 80 let MeSH
• senioři MeSH
• stárnutí * fyziologie   MeSH
• testy pro posouzení mentálních funkcí a demence MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• senioři nad 80 let MeSH
• senioři MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH

Puberty tends to be viewed as a "turning point" in hedonic perception of body odor (BO)-related smells. The pubertal stage, a potential proxy for the underlying physiological changes, may contribute to variation in odor hedonic perception. Other potential modulators of odor hedonics are general semantic knowledge about odors (which also tends to be subsumed under the term "age") and perceived odor intensity. The present cross-sectional study examined differences in hedonic odor perception across puberty in 205 Czech children aged 11-14 (89 boys). We investigated whether children differ in the hedonic appraisal of BO-related (16-androstenes and castoreum control), but also food and non-food odors according to their pubertal (penis/breast and pubic hair) development and general semantic knowledge about odors (operationalized as odor identification), controlling for age and perceived odor intensity. As a subsidiary aim, we examined variation in odor identification. We asked the children to self-stage themselves using drawings depicting Tanner's penis/breast and pubic hair stages of pubertal development, estimated their general semantic knowledge about odors with a Sniffin' Sticks identification test, and obtained their pleasantness and intensity ratings of body odor-related, food, a non-food smells. We found that the participants' ratings of the 16-androstenes and those of the perceptually similar odor of castoreum differed according to perceived intensity and, in the latter case, in boys vs. girls as well, but there were no influences of pubertal status or odor identification on the perceived pleasantness. Similarly, hedonic appraisal of non-food (but not food) odors was only influenced by perceived intensity. Regarding odor identification, differences between boys and girls were limited to younger children and did not become more marked throughout puberty. Perceived pleasantness of odors, irrespective of whether they are associated with body smells, food, or other, does not appear to vary across puberty, and boys and girls seem to achieve similar levels of semantic odor knowledge as they grow up.

• MeSH
• čich * fyziologie   MeSH
• čichová percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• dítě MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladiství MeSH
• odoranty * MeSH
• průřezové studie MeSH
• puberta * fyziologie   psychologie   MeSH
• radost fyziologie   MeSH
• Check Tag
• dítě MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladiství MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Česká republika MeSH

Conducting interviews about children's olfactory behaviours offers a feasible way of learning about the earliest perceptions and knowledge of one's odour world. However, little is known about the stability and development of such self-reports. Here we present the first longitudinal study to repeatedly test children's odour awareness using the Children's Olfactory Behavior in Everyday Life (COBEL) questionnaire in five waves over a two-year period. We expected that higher scores would be attained by girls relative to boys and by older children compared to younger ones and that the scores would increase further into the study. We found a linear time-related increase in the total COBEL scores and in the food and environmental components, whereas awareness of social odours decreased over time. Girls were more olfaction-oriented in the context of social and environmental, but not food, odours. All the reported effects were small. The age at which the children entered the study did not affect their scores. We suggest that the unexpected findings regarding social odours warrant replication in particular and extension in longitudinal studies carried out over a broader time span.

• MeSH
• čich fyziologie   MeSH
• čichová percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• dítě MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• longitudinální studie MeSH
• odoranty * MeSH
• předškolní dítě MeSH
• průzkumy a dotazníky MeSH
• uvědomování si MeSH
• vývoj dítěte fyziologie   MeSH
• Check Tag
• dítě MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• předškolní dítě MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

Olfaction plays an important role in human social communication, including multiple domains in which people often rely on their sense of smell in the social context. The importance of the sense of smell and its role can however vary inter-individually and culturally. Despite the growing body of literature on differences in olfactory performance or hedonic preferences across the globe, the aspects of a given culture as well as culturally universal individual differences affecting odor awareness in human social life remain unknown. Here, we conducted a large-scale analysis of data collected from 10 794 participants from 52 study sites from 44 countries all over the world. The aim of our research was to explore the potential individual and country-level correlates of odor awareness in the social context. The results show that the individual characteristics were more strongly related than country-level factors to self-reported odor awareness in different social contexts. A model including individual-level predictors (gender, age, material situation, education, and preferred social distance) provided a relatively good fit to the data, but adding country-level predictors (Human Development Index, population density, and average temperature) did not improve model parameters. Although there were some cross-cultural differences in social odor awareness, the main differentiating role was played by the individual differences. This suggests that people living in different cultures and different climate conditions may still share some similar patterns of odor awareness if they share other individual-level characteristics.

• MeSH
• čich fyziologie   MeSH
• čichová percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• metakognice fyziologie   MeSH
• mladiství MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• odoranty MeSH
• průzkumy a dotazníky MeSH
• senioři nad 80 let MeSH
• senioři MeSH
• sociální chování * MeSH
• sociální normy MeSH
• teoretické modely MeSH
• Check Tag
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladiství MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• senioři nad 80 let MeSH
• senioři MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

• MeSH
• čichová percepce * fyziologie   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• odoranty MeSH
• olfaktometrie MeSH
• spánek REM fyziologie   účinky léků   MeSH
• spánek fyziologie   MeSH
• stadia spánku fyziologie   účinky léků   MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

• MeSH
• chuťová percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• čichová percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• strava, jídlo, výživa MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH

• MeSH
• čich * fyziologie   MeSH
• čichová percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• přehledy MeSH

• MeSH
• čich * fyziologie   MeSH
• čichová percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• duševní poruchy MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• odoranty MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• přehledy MeSH

Many previous studies have reported robust sex differences in olfactory perception. However, both men and women can be expected to vary in the degree to which they exhibit olfactory performance considered typical of their own or the opposite sex. Sex-atypicality is often described in terms of childhood gender nonconformity, which, however, is not a perfect correlate of non-heterosexual orientation. Here we explored intrasexual variability in psychophysical olfactory performance in a sample of 156 individuals (83 non-heterosexual) and found the lowest odor identification scores in heterosexual men. However, when childhood gender nonconformity was entered in the model along with sexual orientation, better odor identification scores were exhibited by gender-nonconforming men, and greater olfactory sensitivity by gender-conforming women, irrespective of their sexual orientation. Thus, sex-atypicality, but not sexual orientation predicts olfactory performance, and we propose that this might not be limited to olfaction, but represent a more general phenomenon.

• MeSH
• čichová percepce fyziologie   MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• genderová identita * MeSH
• heterosexualita fyziologie   psychologie   MeSH
• homosexualita mužská psychologie   MeSH
• homosexualita ženská psychologie   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• odoranty analýza   MeSH
• pohlavní dimorfismus MeSH
• průzkumy a dotazníky MeSH
• sexuální chování psychologie   MeSH
• sexuální faktory MeSH
• Check Tag
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH