The anterior medial temporal lobe (TL), including the amygdala, has been implicated in olfactory processing, e.g., coding for intensity and valence, and seems also involved in memory. With this background, the present study evaluated whether anterior medial TL-resections in TL epilepsy affected intensity and valence ratings, as well as free and cued identification of odors. These aspects of odo...

Although emotional functioning is impaired in children with autism, it is unclear if this impairment is due to difficulties with facial expression, autonomic responsiveness, or the verbal description of emotional states. To shed light on this issue, we examined responses to pleasant and unpleasant odors in eight children (8-14 years) with high-functioning autism and 8 age-matched typically deve...

The influence of odor valence on expressive-face perception remains unclear. Here, three “valenced” contexts (pleasant, unpleasant, control) were diffused while scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded in 18 participants presented with expressive faces alternating at a 6-Hz rate. One facial expression (happiness, disgust or neutrality) repeatedly arose every 6 face pictures to isolate its ...

Prior visual experience may affect olfactory identification of some odors, yet it remains unclear, whose qualities odor salience and familiarity in blindness. It seems very interesting, because such odors could be used to support the visually impaired individuals through novel solutions involving orientation navigation. Here, we analyzed performance 44 early blind 52 sighted people focusing on ...

Crossmodal correspondences between odors and visual stimuli-particularly colors-are well-established in the literature, but there is a paucity of research involving visual shape correspondences. Crossmodal associations between 20 odors (a selection of those commonly found in wine) and visual shape stimuli ("kiki"/"bouba" forms-Köhler W. 1929. Gestalt psychology. New York: Liveright.) were inves...

Emotion and odor scales (EOS) measuring odor-related affective feelings were recently developed for three different countries (Switzerland, United Kingdom, and Singapore). The first aim of this study was to investigate gender and cultural differences in verbal affective response to odors, measured with EOS and the usual pleasantness scale. To better understand this variability, the second aim w...

Seaweeds have a variety of biological activities, and their aromatic characteristics could play an important role in consumer acceptance. Here, changes aroma compounds were monitored during microbial fermentation, those most likely to affect sensory perception identified. Ulva sp. Laminaria fermented generally recognized as safe microorganisms, the profile volatile seaweeds was investigated usi...

After reading the title of this chapter you might conclude that this is an odd area of investigation, maybe even trivial to human behavior. The sense of smell is given a great deal of importance in non-human animal interactions, including parent-offspring relationships and mating. Often when we think of odors we think of something unpleasant or something to be avoided. However, the sense of sme...