Measuring odor quality of building materials in an odor space

We can discriminate a huge number of odors. Still, the perceptual mechanisms responsible for perceived odor quality is not well understood. The research goal was to define an odor reference space that may represent indoor air quality. Two observers scaled the perceived similarity of discernable emissions of all possible pairs of 30 building materials. Combined cluster and component analyses were used for identifying 12 potential odor references enabling a preliminary definition of the odor space. This odor space was partially validated and improved by individual differences scaling (INDSCAL) of seven observers’ similarity matrices of odor qualities including 27 of the 30 building materials. Grounded in 13 odor references, a three-dimensional measurement space is provided for odor quality of building materials emissions and potentially also for the indoor air quality of non-industrial buildings.