Sound perfume: Building positive impression during face-to-face communication

Abstract

A social psychologist Fritz Heider [Heider 1946] argued that liking or disliking a person depends on how the person is positively or negatively linked to other liked or disliked entities. Therefore, having the ability to express a lasting impression on others could play an important role in interpersonal relationships. Sound and smell can unconsciously help in creating a mental image of another person's personality during a face-to-face encounter, and each unique sound and smell aid in the memory of one another. We designed Sound Perfume as a wearable communication media to explore the idea of helping people manage the formation of their impression by others during a faceto- face interpersonal conversation. This could lead to more positive interactions using memorable auditory and olfactory experiences. This system helps people express their unique identity (ID) and personality to others using sound and fragrance markers through indirect stimulation. This concept is similar to the function of pheromones which are chemicals produced by some animals that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Copyright © 2012 ACM, Inc.