The Cognitive Side of Odor Perception

Although often underrated in importance, the human sense of smell has both evolutionary and contemporary significance: our ability to perceive odors provides information that guides our responses to our environments. For example, the rich aromas wafting from a bakery encourage us to linger and savor them, whereas the smell of rotting garbage impels us to move away. No account of the role of smell in our lives would be complete, however, without an acknowledgment that people vary in their perception of ambient odors in their environment. Some of this variability has been attributed to inter-individual variation in sensitivity: some people have a keener sense of smell than others. However, recent findings in olfactory research has revealed that an important source of differences in response to ambient, environmental odors may also stem from cognitive factors, such as an individual’s beliefs and expectations about the consequences of exposure to an odor.