The Nose Knows

Whether you're aware of it or not, every day we are bombarded by thousands of different smells from even more different places. The coffee from the millions of Starbucks on every street corner, the gas station as you wait to fill-up, the tempting aroma of freshly baked cookies wafting from a little cafe. Yes, smells are everywhere, and much of the time we simply tune them out as most are barely even registered. We become so used to the normal smells of our environment, that it isn't until we detect a 'new' or 'fresh' smell that our attention is caught.

Smell evolved not only as a way to let you know that the pizza parlor on the corner is offering up fresh slices, but as a warning system to changes around us, how to recognize each other and communicate, memory recall, and even how we experience our foods and other tastes. In the animal kingdom, where their sense of smell is much more developed and refined than ours, animals can determine not only a level of hierarchy and territory ownership by odors, but also the smell of fear. Everyone and everything has their own distinct smell, and even from birth a new-born recognizes their mother by the smell she emits.

Although the sense of smell for us humans is less cultivated than that of our animal counterparts, there are still many surprising things tied to the aromas that surround us. One such fact is that smell is perhaps one of the most prominent senses tied to memory. Have you ever had the smell of a certain food immediately make you recall a time from the past? Popcorn and crackerjacks may instantly transport you back to the state fair or the ball park of your youth. Have you whiffed a certain perfume and tied it to the days spent at your grandma's house? It is no wonder, as both smell and memory are so intrinsically connected in our brains. In fact, emotions associated with such memories are also able to be experience long after the event has occurred, and need only a whiff of a certain smell to bring them all rushing back. Even the learning process can be improved when smell is involved, as when an odor is introduced during a lesson or in studying, if the odor is then reintroduced when one is prompted for a recall, you are more likely to remember!

Additionally, scent is so closely tied with taste, that if you were to loose your sense of smell, foods would actually taste quite different. You can get an idea of this concept if you have a cold or stuffy nose and perhaps your favorite meals just aren't as delicious as usual. Without your olfactory receptor cells from your nasal cavity to relay certain stimuli to your brain, most everything you ate would taste relatively the same and bland.

Of course one of the most mysterious and interesting of all the nose related phenomena, is of course pheromones. It has been theorized that men and women are attracted to specific smells released by the opposite sex and as a result causes chemicals in our brains to become aroused. Body sprays and perfumes have taken this idea and run with it, promoting their products as being specifically designed to make the wearer more attractive and likely to land a date.

Truly, this protuberance on our faces is a powerful tool. So, the next time you wished you weren't able to smell the body odor wafting from the man sitting next to you on the bus, think twice, for if that were true there would be much more you would be missing out on!

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1751

http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/agesubject/lessons/newton/tstesmll.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheromone