A Preliminary Experiment on the Evaluation of Aroma Effects Using Biological Signals

Abstract

Aromatherapy is a natural way of healing a person’s mind and body. The essential oils involved in aromatherapy are highly concentrated essences extracted from the plants through the process of the distillation. Each oil produces a predictable and reproducible effect on the user when its aroma is inhaled. There have been lots of researches that confirm the effects of inhaling aroma by using biological signals. However, most of these researches, only the heart rate or the pulse signals are used. And, electroencephalograms (EEGs) is rarely used in evaluating the aroma effects. So in order to increase the validity of the reputed effects of the previous research, we consider to use the combination of the EEG signal and the pulse signal to evaluate the effects of the aroma. This work is the preliminary experiment to evaluate the changes in this combination of biological signals after inhaling several aromas. In this work, we found that the aromas can have different effects at the same time in the EEGs and the pulses.