Smell significantly enhances sense of realism in virtual reality, researchers find
... The study participants played a short segment from the beginning of the game, twice, with and without smell. While they were immersed in playing, researchers administered a blend of four specific odors—forest, smoke, rotten and dank. We developed forest, rotten and dank to match the scenes, using industrial flavor compounds.
One compound we used in the concoction for dank was 1-octen-3-ol, which has an earthy, mushroom odor character. We used dimethyl trisulfide in the rotten mix, which is a product of human decomposition and attracts blowflies.
The smoke smell was a commercially available smoky BBQ marinade sauce.
Fleshing out the smells
...
In the research, we used our prototype "olfactometer" to deliver the odors. An olfactometer sends specific smells along a soft plastic tube fixed underneath the wearers' nose. As the player worked their way through the VR environment, the olfactometer allowed us to accurately deliver the associated smells. ...
See the full story here: https://techxplore.com/news/2022-04-significantly-realism-virtual-reality.html
