Yurleidy PiedrahitaMs. Hyde

8th

Can humans differentiate between natural and synthetic scents?

If I present both natural and synthetic scents to humans, then they will not be able to tell the

difference between the two.

Some perfumes use natural ingredients from nature while others are chemically made. These natural scents are usually very expensive while synthetic ones are very cheap!

To perform this experiment, you will compare a natural scent to a chemical scent. Then, you will ask your volunteers to identify which one they believe, based on scent, is the natural scent and chemical scent.

I believe that the results of my project will show that humans are not able to distinguish between the two.

3 natural scents (cinnamon, vanilla bean, cucumber and melon pieces)

3 synthetic scents (cinnamon, vanilla,

cucumber melon) 8 participants

6 opaque bottles to disguise the appearance of the scents

Manipulated (Independent): The natural and synthetic scents and their fragrance

Responding (Dependent): The number of fragrances the participants correctly identify

Controlled: Amount of participants, number of fragrances

1. Put the 6 scents (3 synthetic and 3 natural) into opaque bottles to disguise the appearance of the scents.

2. Group the scents together. For example, the natural cinnamon scent will be grouped with the synthetic cinnamon scent. There should be 3 groups of 2 scents.

3. Label the scents in each group A and B. You should mix up the order so not all of the natural scents are labeled A and not all synthetic scents are labeled B.

4. Ask your participant to smell both of the scents in one group. Ask them not to look inside the bottles or to pick them up. Their answer should just be based on scent.

5. Ask your participant to indentify one of the scents as natural and the other as synthetic.

6. Record their answer.7. Repeat steps 4-6 for the last 2 groups of

scents.8. Repeat steps 4-7 for the last 7 participants.

9. If they correctly identified 3 of the 3 groups, then they have successfully differentiated between synthetic and natural scents. If they identify at least 2, they have fairly identified them, 1 or less and they have not correctly identified the difference.

Volunteers Vanilla Cinnamon Cucumber Melon

Results

A B A B A B

#1 C N N C C N Not successful

#2 N C N C C N Fairly Successful

#3 N C N C C N Fairly Successful

#4 C N N C C N Not successful

Green-CorrectRed-Incorrect

Vanilla: A-Natural Cinnamon: A-Chemical Cucumber Melon: AChemical B-Chemical B-Natural B-Natural

Volunteers Vanilla Cinnamon Cucumber Melon

Results

A B A B A B

#5 C N C N C N Fairly successful

#6 C N N C C N Not Successful

#7 N C C N C N Successful

#8 C N N C C N Not Successful

Vanilla: A-Natural Cinnamon: A-Chemical Cucumber Melon: AChemical B-Chemical B-Natural B-Natural

Green-CorrectRed-Incorrect

ClaimMy hypothesis has

been proven right.

EvidenceMy evidence shows that

the greater amount of the volunteers were not able to successfully identify between a natural and a synthetic scent. This evidence supports my hypothesis.

The data collected during the experiment concludes that when asked to identify one of

the scents as natural and the other as chemical, the majority of the participants

were not able to successfully complete this task. In my hypothesis, I stated that most of the volunteers would not be able to identify them, and my results have proven this right.

My project shows evidence that most people cannot differentiate between a

scent extracted from nature and a scent made in a factory. Yet, people will spend a considerably large amount of money for a natural fragrance, than synthetic one. Also, creating natural scents are

more expensive to extract and is harmful to wildlife.

http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/project1250_40_1.html