Smelling this scent made people expect to perform better.
The mere smell of coffee is enough to boost cognitive performance.
It doesn’t matter that the coffee has no caffeine in it and actually isn’t even coffee — just a scent that smells like it.
Professor Adriana Madzharov, who led the research, said:
“It’s not just that the coffee-like scent helped people perform better on analytical tasks, which was already interesting
But they also thought they would do better, and we demonstrated that this expectation was at least partly responsible for their improved performance.”
The study involved 100 students taking a standard graduate admissions algebra test (GMAT) in one of two rooms.
One room was unscented, while the other had a lingering aroma of coffee.
People in the coffee scented room did better on the test.
A follow-up survey revealed that it was down to expectations.
The coffee scent made them expect to do better on the test — and so they did.
Professor Madzharov said:
“Olfaction is one of our most powerful senses.
Employers, architects, building developers, retail space managers and others, can use subtle scents to help shape employees’ or occupants’ experience with their environment.
It’s an area of great interest and potential.”
Related
The study was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology (Madzharov et al., 2018).
