Abstract
A vast body of recent research has shown that women tend to outperform men in tests of olfactory abilities. Further, homosexual individuals often show gender atypical traits.
We hypothesised that in men sexual orientation would be positively correlated with olfactory scores and odour awareness whilst in women the correlation was expected to be negative. The Sniffin Sticks test battery was used to assess the olfactory threshold, discrimination and identification of 40 homosexuals (F=20) and 40 heterosexuals (F=20) aged 20-35.
Further, self-report Gender Nonconformity Scale (GN) and Odour Awareness Scale (OAS) were administered.A General Linear Model analysis was performed with the three olfactory measures and the OAS score as dependent variables; sex and sexual orientation as categorical factors, and gender nonconformity as a covariate, which yielded a significant sex difference (F = 2,50; p = ,04) as well as a sex*sexual orientation interaction (F = 2,62; p = ,04).