Human olfaction: a constant state of change-blindness

Abstract

Paradoxically, although humans have a superb sense of smell, they don’t trust their nose. Furthermore, although human odorant detection thresholds are very low, only unusually high odorant concentrations spontaneously shift our attention to olfaction. Here we suggest that this lack of olfactory awareness reflects the nature of olfactory attention that is shaped by the spatial and temporal envelopes of olfaction. Regarding the spatial envelope, selective attention is allocated in space. Humans direct an attentional spotlight within spatial coordinates in both vision and audition. Human olfactory spatial abilities are minimal. Thus, with no olfactory space, there is no arena for olfactory selective attention. Regarding the temporal envelope, whereas vision and audition consist of nearly continuous input, olfactory input is discreet, made of sniffs widely separated in time. If similar temporal breaks are artificially introduced to vision and audition, they induce “change blindness”, a loss of attentional capture that results in a lack of awareness to change. Whereas “change blindness” is an aberration of vision and audition, the long inter-sniff-interval renders “change anosmia” the norm in human olfaction. Therefore, attentional capture in olfaction is minimal, as is human olfactory awareness. All this, however, does not diminish the role of olfaction through sub-attentive mechanisms allowing subliminal smells a profound influence on human behavior and perception.

Anger superiority effect for change detection and change blindness

“…Corresponding phenomena for change blindness have been found for the auditory (Gregg & Samuel, 2008;Pavani & Turatto, 2008;Vitevitch, 2003), tactile (Auvray, Gallace, Hartcher-O'Brien, Tan, & Spence, 2008;Gallace, Zeeden, Roder, & Spence, 2010;Pritchett, Gallace, & Spence, 2011) and olfactory (Pritchett et al, 2011;Sela & Sobel, 2010) modalities. However, here I focus on change blindness.…”

Biological and social aspects of human sexual orientation: chemocommunicative hypothesis

“…Показано, что нос человека сохраняет высокую чувствительность по крайней мере к некоторым лету-чим соединениям, действие которых на организм может не осознаваться. Хемосигналы могут менять поведение, настроение, физиологические и когнитивные процессы, действуя на уровне подсознания [30].…”

Influence of the presence and type of fragrance on the sensory perception of cosmetic formulations

“…Some authors have stated that such a memory did exist and termed it as autobiographical memory. There are situations in which an individual tends to correlate a certain odor with an affective phenomenon, or situations that seem odorless, or those in which odors are interpreted ambiguously or distortedly because of, for example, neurological disorders (Finkelmeyer et al 2010, Gaygen and Hedge 2009, Lawless 1999, Lunström et al 2011, Sela and Sobel 2010, Stevenson 2009, Sulmont-Rosse et al 2005. During research and development, formulators need to ensure the safety and efficacy of the products in order to meet the standards established by the cosmetic industry regulators, such as the Food and Drug Administration in the USA or the National Health Surveillance Agency in Brazil.…”