Okay so clicked on a random sciency vid/pod because I like to learn about random topics whilst gaming or stitching, and tonight was smell
Which was actually really interesting!
Humans are actually really good at smell, even if it's our "weakest" sense (especially compaired with our mammal counterparts)
Points of interest: ( badly jotted, you should watch the episode itself )
✮ take a deep breath, smell the room you're in. What does it smell like? Probably nothing. Because you're used to it. But, if you left for a week and came back, you'd smell yourself - you'd smell what your guests do.
✮ despite being the weakest sense, we are extremely capable of linking smell to memory. Buying a candle, perfume, flower, or even food during an important moment and then smelling it again later will take you back to that time. (Also, if you're studying, smell something you don't use anywhere else, and then sniff it again when you take your test)
✮ humans can smell small changes, but we don't always continuously recognize them
✮ we have two kinds of breathing: breathing for air and breathing for scent. While animals do both at once, every inhale is looking for scent.
✮ we can't pinpoint scent.. the entire room smells like it. Unlike sound ("the workers on the roof are loud" "the fridge is noisy") or sight ("that corner is bright" "this area is dirty") . With smell it isn't "this area is stinky" it's "wow, this room stinks" UNLESS it's an overwhelming scent
✮ speaking of, humans need to be slapped in the face with scent for it really register as important information.
✮ we add scent to propane and natural grass because it's naturally orderless but important to detect : the same oder can be found in decaying animals ← there was a story about vultures flying overhead around gas leaks; helpful for finding and repairing.
✮ they trained dogs to smell money (the ink, the oil of our hands, ECT) to help combat smuggling. In the lab, all the dogs found the cash. In the field, they all failed. Why? Because the money in the lab was wrapped in cellophane. The dogs learned to detect cellophane. To us, cellophane is completely orderless.
✮ smelling coffee beans to "cleanse the pallet" is a hoax
✮ febreze, originally, literally neutralized scents. But it didn't get used because customers smelled no difference. They can't smell themselves or their home, so getting rid of the scent did nothing. After the company added scents/perfume associated with "clean", their sales skyrocketed.
✮ similarity, mint in toothpaste. It does nothing, but we link it to cleanliness
✮ it's incredibly easy to fool your brain. An experiment mentioned: cherry flavored liquid, but change the colour, and subjects would say it tasted like something else even though nothing else changed. (Colour it orange, and you'll taste oranges, because you rely on the colour to give you more information) .. we trust our eyes more than anything else
✮ another experiment: can we learn to smell like dogs? Subjects were blindfolded, wearing gloves, and were told to follow a trail of scent. A 10m string was dipped in chocolate essence and dragged through the grass. You ARE able to follow it! They even put in a 45° bend to see if you could tell when the path changed, and you could. I mean, obviously dogs would be better, but it's cool that we can follow scent trails if all other senses were useless. The more they practiced z the better they got at following it.
I think my favorite note was:
✮ we try and choose deodorants that are close / similar to our own natural scent / chemical compositions (despite not really being able to smell ourselves) and we naturally try to find partners who's scent is far different than ours
