At a crime scene, the police have a habit of calling eyewitnesses. Could she one day seek the help of “olfactory” witnesses? This is what claims a study by Professor Mats Olsson, a psychologist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. This demonstrates, in the review Frontiers of Psychology, than human sense of smellis a reliable and efficient source when it comes to identifying the perpetrator of a crime.
Until now it was thought that nothing equaled the flair of animals to find traces of suspects. The sense of smell of humans is indeed commonly perceived as inferior to that of other mammals.
Mats Olsson unravels this premise and assures us that the human nose is a powerful tool for detecting specific body odor after a traumatic event. His reasoning is based on the fact that smell is directly linked to areas of the brain associated with emotion and memory, at the level of the hippocampus and amydgale.
A successful scent identification in 70% of cases
In her experience, participants watched videos in which people perpetrated violent crimes. This viewing was accompanied by a body odor presented as that of criminals. Then the volunteers watched neutral films accompanied by the same olfactory process. They were then given a scent test where they had to recognize a criminal from the first video by his body odor among five different male scents. Olfactory identification worked 70% of the time.
“It worked beyond my expectations, enthused Mats Olsson. What’s more interesting is that the participants were much better at remembering and identifying body odor when it involved an emotional environment. “.
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