 | This article has multiple issues. Please helpimprove it or discuss these issues on thetalk page.(Learn how and when to remove these messages) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
|
_1.jpg)
Olfactic communication is a channel ofnonverbal communication referring to the various ways people and animalscommunicate and engage insocial interaction through their sense ofsmell. Ourhumanolfactorysense is one of the mostphylogeneticallyprimitive[1] andemotionallyintimate[2] of thefive senses; the sensation of smell is thought to be the most matured and developed human sense.
Human ancestors essentially depended on their sense of smell to alert themselves of danger such aspoisonous food and to locate potentmating partners. Using the sense of smell as an instrument paved a way for smell to become a platform ofnonverbal communication. Smell also has a significant influence on social interactions. Through their branch of olfaction research, theNational Science Foundation recorded that over 70 percent of American adults believe a person'sbody odor has a significant effect on how interested they will be when conversing with people of a different sex.[3] This process is possible witholfactory bulbs, the part of the brain that discriminates and enhances certain odors. Typically, women will prefer men whose natural odor is similar to their own, while heterosexual men are attracted to females with highestrogen levels and strongmenstrual secretions.[4] An entire industry has been developed to provide people with personal smell-masking products, such asperfume, cologne,deodorant, and scented lotions. When a person covers their natural body odor with a pleasant smell, they are communicating their desire to be attractive either emotionally, sexually, or romantically.[3]
Olfactics is the most critical sense of human biology for centuries, the first classification system for odors was not developed until the later half of the 1700s byCarolus Linnaeus; today, humans are most dependent oneyesight. Linnaeus' system was composed of seven different categories that various types of smells could be identified with. These categories arechamphoraceous musky, floral, pepperminty, ethereal, pungent, and putrid.[5] This classification system has been readvised numerous times and is still being developed to actively interpret human olfactics. Linnaeus' work sparked interest in several colleagues and other scientists, leading to theories of how olfactics are linked to a person'smood andemotional state. This led to the creation of scented room vaporizer in 1851.Eugene Remmel's room perfumer was originally designed to uplift or relax the occupants of the space. However, this invention instead rose to popularity for its simple ability of providing suitable air quality by ventilating small, heavily populated public places. Today, people use scentedessential oils in their home or office to create a certain ambience. For example,peppermint is used to uplift dreary attitudes, citrus attracts motivational energy, vanilla is used to promote calmness, andlavender predicts relaxation. Sharing a scent with the entire room spreads a message of what atmosphere the host would like to set and in return, nonverbally communicates the manner in which the guests or visitors should act.
In 1916,Hans Henning created a three dimensional smell-prism with six corners. Each corner represented a distinctive smell including flowery or ethereal, putrid, fruity or fragrant, spicy, burned, and resinous. Henning's theory suggested all other smells were a combination of these six and each smell occupied its own location on the prism.[5] This prism led to new developments in understanding olfactics, however not everyone was satisfied with Henning's research. Today, there is still not a universally agreed upon standardized classification system forolfaction. This is primarily due to the drastic differences in how certain smells are perceived by variouscultures. Although sufficient research is still being recorded to explain the connection between olfaction andpreferences, experts have theorized that certain smells are connected to a person's thinking, creativity, memory, and reaction abilities. This is because when a person is experiencing a negative emotion, their olfaction sense sharpens. This creates a lastingmemory, correlating the scent with a certain experience and emotions a person felt.[3] The same patterns can be detected when a person feelsjoy,sadness, orfear.
Theattributions we make through the olfacticchannel have implications for ourmoral understandings ofourselves andothers, along with thejudgments andevaluations we make aboutidentity,social class,status,sex,race,gender andethnicrelationships.[6]
Olfactics or smell have incredibly varying interpretations depending on where a person is in the world. In somecultures negative smells can result in positive emotions where in thewestern world, negative smells are often met with negative emotions. The sense of smell has often been overlooked and understudied and many people often perceive olfactics as a lower importance sense as it pertains tocommunication. The importance and variation of olfactics can be seen in how different countries use the senses and how different cultures interpret different smells. For example, rot is often a very negative smell and is often met with a tightening reaction in the body including a restricting of thepupils in an attempt for the body to receive a reduced amount of information. However, as the smell may be met with a reaction ofdisgust in one country, another country may react with happiness as it is a way for some cultures to gauge whether food has finished going through a certain process or not.
Olfactics also can impact how someone is received in a social setting in different countries or cultures. In different regions of the world, it is necessary to develop different coding linguistics in order to survive in that area. Smell is onesense that is often poorly coded in human communication inwestern culture[7] because humans have a hard time identifying smells and communicating them.[8] Researcher Asifa Majid at theUniversity of York argues that there iscross cultural evidence that there are numerous languages that utilizecoding olfaction in their language. These languages have encoded smell into their grammar due to their environmental needs.[9] TheUmpila are Indigenous people ofAustralia that have the most codeable olfactory sense in theirlanguage.[7]
Due to the impact smell has on the human brain and the reception of different people, it can impact whether or not an individual accepts another individual. Bad smells can drive people away due to the harsh nature of the odors, whereas nice smellingfragrances can communicate positively.[10] During medieval times peasants would often give off horrid odors and the higher noble classes would often look down on them for it, and while the reaction may not be as harsh, the same instances can be seen in today's world. Big corporations can manipulate the olfactic senses in customers or employees by having a nice scent being put out in order to give off feelings ofcomfort or to promote attitudes ofproductivity.
Scent can transmit an intrinsic message. It can also transmit a message that relies on, or affects, other senses, such as:
The interactions between thetouch and olfactic senses will dictate behavior due to the circumstances of where the interaction is set to occur. It could also be used with smell in an attempt to identify what a random or unknown object could be. For example, If a person were to walk into a room that did not smell good they would be less likely to interact with the environment around them. If a room smells welcoming and comforting a person would be more likely to stay longer and interact with more things. These examples provide a brief understanding on how smell may affect the behaviors or interactions behind certain senses.[11]
Taste and smell go hand in hand as some of the mainstimulants for flavor is the result that comes from smell working with taste. The human body has many complex interactions when it comes to how the five senses can help or hurt each other. These two senses can impact people'semotions andbehaviors and can also causepain depending on what the sense is being used for.[12] These senses can also be positively or negatively affected bymedication,disease,smoking, ordrinking. For example,COVID-19 was well known for temporarily nullifying the sense of taste and smell.[13] Olfactics can help dictate on whether or not something should be consumed, but at times the sense of smell can be fooled.
In a large survey study on the importance and attention to olfaction in daily life, Wrzesniewski et al. found that completely losing one's sense of smell was ranked as equivalent to losing one's little left toe or hearing in one ear.[14] Sight is a common sense but when it comes to smelling what a person is surrounded by (i.e., environment). The sensory stimuli can affect a person's behavior when browsing through a grocery store, even in the environment. Odor can affect individualssubconscious mind and make a consumer become more allured to specific things.[15] Visual dominance refers not only to neural processing but also to vision's cultural and social primacy.
With olfactics we perceiveauditory cues in our everyday life.[16] For instance: a person who struggles withhalitosis. While talking to others, since people experience not only odors through the front of the nose or the back of the nose, but also sounds, auditory perceptions may be neglected or drawn out by the sense of smell. Of the five senses sound has the least impact on olfactic communication. With sound a person may be able to hear the sound of food cooking, though they must use their olfactory epithelium which contains special receptors that are sensitive to odor molecules that travel through the air.[17]
As of March 2020, theCOVID-19 outbreak left many individuals losing their sense of smell and/or taste, those that have had the feeling of loss in their senses were told toquarantine or severe isolation. Many people still to modern day are battling with loss of smell and taste and have upper respiratory problems. During the COVID-19 outbreak, patients with sudden loss of smell should initiatesocial distancing and home isolation measures and be tested forSARS-CoV-2 diagnostic test when available. Olfactory training is recommended when smell does not come back after one month but can be started earlier.[18] The leading cause to the loss of smell isURTI, Smell loss in URTI is caused by a multifactorial combination of mechanical obstruction for the odorant transmission in the olfactory cleft due to mucosal inflammation (cytokine storm) and shedding (neurodegeneration) of the olfactory neuro-epithelium which interfere with odorants binding to OR[19]
Smell plays an important largelynonconscious role in the process of physical andromantic attraction. From an evolutionary perspective, the most important human outcome is successfulprocreation and the production of healthyoffspring capable of procreating themselves. One key factor in evolution is the development genes known as themajor histocompatibility complex (MHC). MHC has evolved in humans to allow for individuals to distinguish compatibility efforts through smell when choosing a mate to ensure strongerimmune systems for survival in offspring. To test the MHC theory, participants were invited to sniff dirty week-old t-shirts. Participants preferred the odor of the t-shirts that tended to have a genetically different MHC than their own.[20] Inovulating women, it is found that their preference of smell in a male is more reliant on facial attractiveness, suggesting when a woman is at her most fertile smell becomes more crucial in the decision-making process.[21] One way to ensure our offspring will be healthy and effective in this regard is for us to seek, find, and mate with healthy romantic partners. Thus, the process ofnatural selection has made us particularly attentive to the various signs indicative of the healthiest potential mates we can attract, and one's scent is a particularly important cue tosexual attraction in this regard.[22]
_male_in_%2522Flehmen%2522_attitude_(13583690785).jpg)
.jpg)
In the animal kingdom, chemical communication orsemiochemicals is received through the olfactory channel allowing for the animal to decode and recognize chemical signals. Among other animals, animalcognition research finds that dogs are more reliant on olfaction than any othersense.[23] Dogs have a significantly larger olfactoryepithelium with 30 percent moreolfactory receptors than humans.[24] Having more olfactory receptors that can recognize a much larger variety of odorants. Dogs rely onsniffing to gather past information on their surrounding environment through odour detection and identification allowing them to localize odors. Semiochemicals are "a substance excreted by an animal, to the outside of that individual, which is then received by another individual, classically of the same species, which then elicits some behavioral or developmental response related to the survival of the species."[25]
Manymammals exhibit both odorant andvomeronasal sensitive organs. Pigs communicate through pheromones commonly and also display main olfactoryepithelium response to somepheromones. Additionally in mice we see vomeronasal response from odors not produced by animals. Some mutant mice defective in VNO activity continue to display activity that is indicative of pheromone communication. Odorants and pheromones display many similarities. Additionally, it is seen in mice that the response to the presence of certain semiochemicals and odors can be learned. For example, a mouse is not aggressive to the scent of his own pheromones. However, when these pheromones are presented on another male mouse the aggressive behavior will be displayed. Mice form an olfactory memory which helps them define and react to the presence of pheromones. Humans have no VNO but still a level of communication through semiochemicals. These classes of pheromonal action are the opposite-sex attractants, the same-sex repellants (territorial markers), mother–infant bonding attractants and thosemodulating the timing of thefertile cycle.[26] There is contradictory evidence supporting the hypothesis that humans use pheromones in order to regulate behavior through these four channels.[27] Humans are capable of distinctly recognizing and empathizing with emotion identified from bodily odors.
Research done by Kokocińska-Kusiak A, Woszczyło M, Zybala M, Maciocha J, Barłowska K, Dzięcioł M (August 2021), found that dogs can transmit messages through semiochemicals inurine marking among their environment leaving a "scent mark" for other animals to decode later on. In male dogs andwolves, urine-marking used more frequently in unknown areas and the practice is even continued when there is no urine left, meaning the passing of semiochemicals is not strictly tied to the act of urination.[28] Animal behaviors can be altered by chemical stimuli. Chemical stimuli is a crucial source of information that elicits different behavioral responses fromaquatic invertebrates. For example, in Elyssa Rosen's research she was able to find thathermit crabs have different reactions to water that has been previously occupied by a potentialpredatory and non-predatory crabs. It is important for hermit crabs to be able to decode these chemical stimuli in order to understand if theterritory is safe to occupy.[29] The perfect environment to receive semiochemicals is thoughhumidity and light sun. Elements that can negatively disrupt the chemical communication channel isheavy rain in the environment because it brings the scents hanging in the air and burring them into the ground as well asfog that causes a scent to diffuse and linger in the air which can cause confusion.[29]
Natural human body odors may also carry emotional information that can be decoded by others which allows forcommunication.[30]In one study, study groups placed cotton gauze into their armpit and were shown fear or happiness inducing videos. Later the sweat samples were given to participants of the opposite sex. They were able to determine the emotional state of the donor at "above chance levels."[30] Researcher Denise Chen and Jeanneette Haviland-Jones's findings the happiness odors can be detected more frequently by women than men.[30]Disgust andfear both have identifiable and distinguishable scents. Should an individual be exposed to the scent of fear (in this case sweat samples from first time skydivers) various parts of thebrain are activated: theamygdala andhypothalamus primarily. Additionally, the insula (which processes sensory and emotional information), thefusiform gyrus (which plays a key role in face and object recognition), and thecingulate cortex (which helps regulate responses to pain and emotion).[31] Activating the appropriate regions of the brain when the brain recognizes the presence of applicable semiochemicals allows for more cognition.
Olfactic cues can impact the degree ofcooperativeness of an individual.[32] Generally, men are rated as more selfish and less cooperative when presented with a masculine scent. This scent contained higher concentrations ofandrostadienone. Scent donors were rated on cooperativeness before the sample was taken, and this sample had a positive correlation to the cooperativeness of the subject in a later test. The exact compounds produced in relation to cooperativeness require further investigation.
