Human Sense of Smell Underestimated

Benjamin Long writes to note a study, by a team of neuroscientists and engineers, that demonstrated that humans can follow a scent trail — an ability that most had assumed only animals possessed. Furthermore, the study demonstrated for the first time that humans make use of differential information from the two nostrils. The researchers blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail. Here is the abstract of the paper in Nature Neuroscience. From the article: "The humans, however, still sniffed much more slowly than dogs, which may partially account for canines' greater efficiency at scent tracking. [A commentator] says that despite their relatively sluggish speed, the fact that subjects improved with training is noteworthy. 'I think that shows the effect of our distinctively different behavior in actually using this sense,' he says. 'The dog [has] been doing this its whole life, and humans [were] just asked to plunge in the first time they've ever done it.'"

Comments

Duh?

[Reality Master 101]

that demonstrated that humans can follow a scent trail -- an ability that most had assumed only animals possessed.

Err, I recently smelled something burning. I walked through my house using my nose to follow the scent trail, and locate the single light bulb in the chandelier that had a tiny piece of plastic stuck to it that was burning (from a Christmas decoration).

How do these researchers think I performed this amazing feat? Got out my hound dog and had him sniff around?

Re:Duh?

[Original Replica]

I understand the difference you are suggesting, but doubt that was what the researchers found. Even trained dogs move their heads from side to side, determining a direction to the source by comparitive scent levels. If the students had their heads immobilzed and could still indicate a direction, that would be a different matter.

Stereo smell.

[sbaker]

It's not evident from the slash summary - but one interesting discovery is that we actually smell in stereo - hence two nostrils.

That comes as a surprise to me - our other stereo sense organs (eyes and ears) are placed just about as far apart on our heads as is structurally possible - but our nostrils are really close together. OK - we don't have a really great sense of smell and we don't rely on it at all - but dogs clearly do - and their nostrils are also very close together.

You'd think we (or at least dogs) would have nostrils mounted just below our ears.

Weird.

Re:Stereo smell.

[ceoyoyo]

It's important for us (well, dogs anyway) to be able to get our noses close to the scent trail to pick up faint scents, so our nostrils have to stick out in front. Think of a line following robot -- it's best to have two sensors, separated a little, but not by all that much.

Re:Worst. Smell. Ever.

[megaditto]

If the odor was spread out evenly, how did they know it was coming from you?

Re:Much of common life destroys basic senses.

[lawpoop]

Let me play devil's advocate -- can you be sure that a human male doesn't have as strong a scent as a human female? Maybe women in the women's barracks are able to smell a man when they are amongst only women just as well as you and the other guys are able to smell a woman. Maybe human males have specific receptors for whatever chemicals a human female secretes.

Re:Much of common life destroys basic senses.

[sh4na]

Oh please! Females can't go hunting because the animals might smell them, because you found out you can smell a woman after living exclusively with men for weeks? What do you think men smell like to women, of rosy pastel soft stuff? rofl! If anything, men leave behind stronger scents than women do. You know, all that testosterone stuff, it's a real pain. You wanna know something really interesting-like? Hunters hunt *against* the wind. How about that for shocker?

Frankly, how you could turn your post from a genuine interesting human experience to a "heck, so *that's* why women are meant to stay at home! They smell!" thing just blows me away. Amazing. o0

Re:Student Dignity

[SpaceLifeForm]

Well, if they had used beer, the study would still be ongoing.

We all volunteered

[Dareth]

... for the psych experiments at my school. The form we all signed said we did it of our own free will. Failing our psych class if we didn't surely didn't motivate us in any way.

Re:Student Dignity

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say beer was DEFINITELY involved.

Smell and memory

[dzeaiter]

What about the ability of our sense of smell to make us remember things?

It's very strong with me, almost to a crazy point. Smelling a fragrance that I associate with someone makes me remember them (almost jolts me) much more than anything else, even seeing a picture of that person.

Re:Agree no surprises. Richard Feynman documented

[JourneyExpertApe]

Many people who suspect their spouses of affairs also observe this ability too (knowing in which rooms a guest's been in). Maybe they can smell the perfume/cologne? It's my experience that the "other woman" (or "other man") wants to be detected in order to force a confrontation between the committed couple, and, thus, will intentionally leave clues to be found (strong perfume/cologne, condom wrapper, undergarments, etc.) After all, they have much less to lose than the one who is involved in a committed relationship. Detecting infidelity doesn't necessarily require a keen sense of smell.