Arshamian lead a team that identified scents perceived as pleasant by cultures worldwide. They report that they asked people “from 9 diverse nonwestern cultures—hunter-gatherer to urban dwelling—to rank . . . odorants from most to least pleasant. . . . there was substantial global consistency. . . . Taken together, this shows human olfactory perception is strongly constrained by universal principles. . . . Ranked most highly pleasant by most people was vanilla, then ethyl butyrate (a fruity smell) and linalool (a floral scent). Least pleasant was isovaleric acid (a smell like rancid cheese) and second to last was diethyl disulfide (in garlic and durian fruit).”
Artin Arshamian, Richard Gerkin, Nicole Kruspe, Ewelina Wnuk, Simeon Floyd, Carolyn O’Meara, Gabriela Rodriguez, Johan Lundstrom, Joel Mainland, and Asifa Majid. 2022. “The Perception of Odor Pleasantness is Shared Across Cultures.” Current Biology, vol. 32, no. 9, pp. 2061-2066.e3, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.02.062