It is coming back to the fore as one of the warning signs for suspecting Covid-19: olfaction is one of our five senses, the one that has regressed the most since the dawn of time. However, some multinationals are working on scent marketing.
Humans are the species that use their noses the most. For nearly a million years, with the bipedal station, it clearly favors vision. Another unknown characteristic, smelling is one of the components of the alert system more than one of the essential parts of the search for pleasure: 80% of odors detected by humans have an aversive connotation, only 20% are associated with a positive emotion. . It is a sense that helps to ward off danger more than to attract. A peculiarity which explains the astonishing phenomenon of the exacerbation of the olfactory sense in pregnant women. They have an unusual perception of smells because it is a natural goal of human evolution: to sharpen in them all the senses of alertness to external dangers for their survival and that of their baby!
Dogs apparently sniff each other with great pleasure, yet if some claim that we “choose our spouse above all by smell”, which has never been demonstrated, we must relativize the “natural” role of communication of odors. … since the advent of hygiene 200 years ago. In our modern world where odor pollution is considerable, this recognition could persist in a very “family” world with a lot of promiscuity without much daily grooming.
Untapped sense, it was natural to see the birth of a marketing of odors. It starts with “love potion” scents, which are very popular on the net. The mechanism of action is clever: proposing artificial molecules, depending on their shape, to fit into certain sensory receptors of the loved one, like two pieces of a Lego do! The theory is attractive, the result not yet certified. Moreover, the exaggerated use of perfumes is often not an asset, because it is only one element of the very wide sensory panoply used for seduction. Commercial manipulation, on the other hand, is much more worrying. There is nothing abnormal in using the power of certain molecules to deceive the natural molecule. For example, artificial flavorings, banana, strawberry or detestable odors for “poisonous” products, especially domestic ones. But by creating an olfactory need, the objective is much more insidious, very “trendy” and above all effective: the lemon smell of cleaning products, the showrooms selling old cars with the smell of sandalwood and old leather… Exposed to a smell, we mentally construct an image and thanks to this very marked sensory effect, the manipulation of people becomes effective.
Olfactory research does not only have negative sides. Let us pass over the attempt, today aborted, to develop an effective weapon of war without being dangerous, to persuade the enemy to surrender to put an end to the unpleasant smells. On the other hand, the scientific police have real hopes with tests as precise as fingerprints or DNA analysis. Doctors have taken over the technique of police dogs. The smell perceived by the animal becomes a quality that the dog experiences as a success, if the master rewards him every time. With the dog, we divert the perception of an “alert” smell by that of a “reward” smell. These dogs sniff the urine to track down sarcosine, a molecule that signals the existence of prostate cancer, undetectable by our known instruments. The first studies are unquestionably positive.
And then there is this novelty with the covid already mentioned on our site.
https://www.pourquoidocteur.fr/Articles/Question-d-actu/31852-La-perte-gout-l-odorat-symptomes-de-l-infection-coronavirus
Doctor Jean-Francois Lemoine
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The legend of musk
It does not arouse sexual desire: it is a smell very well felt by women, but not necessarily attractive; on the other hand, it is so in many mammals.
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