Bologna study: rosemary scent aided transfer of mixed-reality Rubik's cube skills to a physical cube
In an experiment with 48 participants, repeating the scent present during mixed-reality training improved accuracy on a physical Rubik's cube the next day.
Researchers at the University of Bologna tested whether a recognisable scent can help carry a skill learned in mixed reality over to the physical world, Le Scienze reports. The experiment involved 48 participants aged 19 to 35 and a task based on the Rubik's cube: first with a digital twin, then with a physical cube. lescienze.it
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The work was done at the Virtual and Augmented Reality Lab (VARLab) of the university. It was published in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics and received one of the eight Best Paper Awards at IEEE ISMAR 2026.
Experiment design
During training, a headset showed a digital copy of the cube synchronised with the physical one, along with animated demonstrations and feedback on the correctness of each move. The goal was to learn to interpret symbols indicating which faces to rotate and in which direction. The next day participants came back to the lab and performed the same sequences on the physical cube without the headset.
Some participants spent both days with rosemary scent diffused in the room, while others had no perceptible odour. In further groups the scent was present only during learning or only during the next-day test. lescienze.it
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Results
According to the authors, rosemary on the first day increased motivation and the feeling of being inside the environment shown by the headset. Among those who learned with rosemary, meeting the same scent the next day was accompanied by higher accuracy, lower mental workload and less difficulty recalling what they had learned, compared with those tested without it.
The researchers explain the rationale this way: when a task is performed without the headset, part of the cues that accompanied learning is lost, including the system's guidance and some features of the training environment. A scent diffused in the room can be reproduced without the headset and provide continuity between training and test.
Gustavo Marfia, professor of computer science at the University of Bologna, who coordinated the study with researcher Pasquale Cascarano, called the results a first experimental evidence that olfactory contextual cues can support the transfer of visuospatial and procedural skills from mixed-reality environments to real-world execution. He said this could be useful for designers of immersive training systems, from surgical procedures to industrial machinery. lescienze.it
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The paper is titled "Olfactory Context Cues for Procedural Skill Transfer from Digital Twin-Based Mixed Reality Learning to Real-World Execution". Its authors are Mengting Lai, Xiaoxuan Zhao, Wen Li, Shirin Hajahmadi, Pasquale Cascarano and Gustavo Marfia, all from the University of Bologna.
