Does scent attractiveness reveal women’s ovulatory timing? Evidence from signal detection analyses and endocrine predictors of odor attractiveness

Odor cues associated with shifts in ovarian hormones indicate ovulatory
timing in females of many nonhuman species. Although prior evidence
supports women’s body odors smelling more attractive on days when
conception is possible, that research has left ambiguous how diagnostic of
ovulatory timing odor cues are, as well as whether shifts in odor
attractiveness are correlated with shifts in ovarian hormones. Here, 46
women each provided 6 overnight scent and corresponding day saliva samples
spaced 5 days apart, and completed luteinizing hormone tests to determine
ovulatory timing. Scent samples collected near ovulation were rated more
attractive, on average, relative to samples from the same women collected
on other days. Importantly, however, signal detection analyses showed that
rater discrimination of fertile window timing from odor attractiveness
ratings was very poor. Within-women shifts in salivary estradiol and
progesterone were not significantly associated with within-women shifts in
odor attractiveness. Between-women, mean estradiol was positively
associated with mean odor attractiveness. Our findings suggest that raters
cannot reliably detect women’s ovulatory timing from their scent
attractiveness. The between-women effect of estradiol raises the
possibility that women’s scents provide information about overall cycle
fecundity, though further research is necessary to rigorously investigate
this possibility.