Visual-olfactory immersive environment for product evaluation

Today smells are used for communicating information about products as household cleaners and food. However, smells can be also applied to any kind of products. Several researches have focused on integrating smells in virtual environments. The research questions addressed in this work concern whether Virtual Prototypes, including the sense of smell, can be used for evaluating products as effectively as studies performed in real environments, and whether smells can increase the users´ sense of presence in the virtual environment. For this purpose, an experimental framework including a wearable olfactory display has been developed, and experimental tests have been performed.