The meaning and ·power of smell

A survey conducted by Anthony Synott at Montreal's Concordia University asked participants to comment on how important smell was to them in their lives. It became apparent that smell can evoke strong emotional responses. A scent associated with a good experience can bring a rush of joy, while a foul odor or one associated with a bad memory may make us grimace with disgust. Respondents to the survey noted that many of their olfactory likes and dislikes were based on emotional associations. Such associations can be powerful enough so that odors that we would generally label unpleasant become agreeable, and those that we would generally consider fragrant become disagreeable for particular individuals. The perception of smell, therefore, consists not only of the sensation of the odors themselves but of the experiences and emotions associated with them. Odors are also essential cues in social bonding. One respondent to the survey believed that there is no true emotional bonding without touching and smelling a loved one. Infants recognize the Odors of their mothers soon after birth and adults can often identify their children or spouses by scent. In one well-known test, women, and men were able to distinguish by smell alone clothing worn by their marriage partners from similar clothing worn by other people. Most of the subjects would probably never have given much thought to Odors as a cue for identifying family members before being involved in the test, but as the experiment revealed, even when not consciously considered, smells register. Despite its importance to our emotional and sensory lives, the smell is probably the most undervalued sense in many cultures. The reason often given for the low regard in which smell is held is that, in comparison with its importance among· animals, the human sense of smell is feeble and undeveloped. While it is true that the olfactory powers of humans are nothing like as fine as those possessed by certain animals, they are still remarkably acute. Our noses can recognize thousands of smells, and perceive Odors that are present only in extremely small quantities. Smell, however, is a highly elusive phenomenon. Odors, unlike colors, for instance, cannot be named in many languages because the specific vocabulary simply doesn't exist. 'It smells like. . . , ' we have to say when describing an Odors, struggling to express our olfactory experience. Nor can Odors be recorded: there is no effective way to either capture or store them over time. In the realm of olfaction, we must make do with descriptions and recollections. This has implications for olfactory research. Most of the research on smell undertaken to date has been of a physical scientific nature. Significant advances have been made in the understanding of the biological and chemical nature of olfaction, but many fundamental questions have yet to be answered. Researchers have still to decide whether the smell is one sense or two - one responding to Odors proper and the other registering odorless chemicals in the air. Other unanswered questions are whether the nose is the only part of the body affected by Odors, and how smells can be measured objectively given the non-physical components. Questions like these mean that interest in the psychology of smell is inevitably set to play an increasingly important role for researchers. However, the smell is not simply a biological and psychological phenomenon. The smell is cultural, hence it is a social and historical phenomenon. Odors are invested with cultural values: smells that are considered to be offensive in some cultures may be perfectly acceptable in others. Therefore, our sense of smell is a means of, and model for, interacting with the world. Different smells can provide us with intimate and emotionally charged experiences and the value that we attach to these experiences is interiorized by the members of society in a deeply personal way. Importantly, our commonly held feelings about smells can help distinguish us from other cultures. The study of the cultural history of smell is, therefore, in a very real sense, an investigation into the essence of human culture.