Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 3, 2026

Real-time In Vitro Monitoring of Odorant Receptor Activation by an Odorant in the Vapor Phase
Published on: April 23, 2019
The color of odors
G Morrot1, F Brochet, D Dubourdieu
1Unité de Recherche Biopolymères et Arômes, Centre INRA de Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
Abstract:
The interaction between the vision of colors and odor determination is investigated through lexical analysis of experts' wine tasting comments. The analysis shows that the odors of a wine are, for the most part, represented by objects that have the color of the wine. The assumption of the existence of a perceptual illusion between odor and color is confirmed by a psychophysical experiment. A white wine artificially colored red with an odorless dye was olfactory described as a red wine by a panel of 54 tasters. Hence, because of the visual information, the tasters discounted the olfactory information. Together with recent psychophysical and neuroimaging data, our results suggest that the above perceptual illusion occurs during the verbalization phase of odor determination.
Related Concept Videos
Olfaction
The olfactory receptors are embedded in the cilia of the...
Physiology of Smell and Olfactory Pathway
The olfactory...
Indicators
Olfactory Receptors: Location and Structure
Tactile and Chemical Senses
Color Vision

