Multidimensional scaling of fragrances: A comparison between the verbal and non‐verbal methods of classifying fragrances1

: Higuchi, Shoji, and Hatayama (2002) selected nine sense-descriptive adjectives (e.g., sweet, clear) to describe the olfactory properties of fragrances. In order to clarify the ability of these adjectives to classify fragrances, the present study used a non-verbal sorting of fragrances that has been widely accepted in previous studies as a method of classifying fragrance. Interfragrance similarities obtained from the non-verbal sorting were then compared with those obtained from the adjective rating based on a two-dimensional spatial configuration of fragrances created by a multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis. The similarities of the two MDS configurations, obtained from the verbal and non-verbal sorting, were estimated by the correlation of interfragrance distances on the spatial configuration. The correlation coefficient was 0.61, indicating that the ability of the sense-descriptive adjectives to classify fragrances is nearly the same as that of the non-verbal sorting.