Sunday, July 10, 2011

Perception and Smell

The chemical senses are considered to be taste and smell. Taste and smell are so important to everyday living. I know from experience that when I get the common cold my sense of smell and taste seem to “disappear”. Humans do not need to have the sense of smell to survive, whereas animals do in fact need that sense. When humans try and detect smells, they tend go with the stronger scent. When someone has a cold, though, their senses become weak and they cannot pick up on the stronger scent. Humans can recognize scents, but they can never label them accurately. This appears to be caused by an inability to retrieve the name from memory, not from a lack of sensitivity.

Perception plays a big role in smell. When someone smells and scent their perception takes over. They automatically remember a time or perceive that smell to be a certain object. The picture below shows a bundle of lemons. When I smell lemons, I think about summertime, lemonade, even my job at Rita’s Water Ice.













By: Stephanie Zilinski

6 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed reading your post, I also enjoy Rita's water ice. I loved the connection you made between animals and humans, humans can get away without having a sense of smell when dealing with a cold but animals cannot. Animals rely so much more on there sense of smell then we do, to hunt and survive. I get frustrated when dealing with a cold because I cant taste my food, animals who cant smell would be lost and starving trying to survive!

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  2. This is so true that taste and smell are influenced by our perceptions. I recall a time where my father was suffering with a sinus problem and had no sense of smell. He was enjoying a yellow lollipop and commented how much he was enjoying his banana flavored lollipop. I gave him the lollipop and I knew it was a lemon flavored lollipop. So, I guess in his mind he perceived the yellow lollipop as having the taste of banana when in reality it was a lemon lollipop. Perception overtook his sense of taste when his sense of smell was lacking.

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  3. I really liked your post. It was well written and very interesting to read.

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  4. I enjoyed reading your post and your right that perception plays a major role in smell. You brought up a good point that humans can get away without their sense of smell when dealing with a cold while unfortunately animals cannot. Now I think I want some Rita's Water Ice! :)

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  5. I work at Bath and Body Works and obviously smell in there is a huge deal. The first thing we tell our customers is that just because someone else says this scent smells great doesn't mean you'll like it. Also scented lotions and perfumes actually can smell completely different on one person then the other eventhough its the same scent. Our body chemical reactions to the scents in different lotions and we all have a different reaction. I personally find scents that have a freshness to them to smell the best but I know a girl I work with who hates those smells and perfers floral scents instead. Our nose does some crazy things but it does have a mind of its own. Also here is another tip if you are ever shopping for perfume or lotion and there is no coffee beans around just smell your shirt sleeve or yourself, your nose gets used to your scent and it neutralizes your sniffer. (tends to work even better then coffee beans).

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  6. It is incredible what the power of scents can do. A scent can literally activate something in your brain that will take you back years to a certain time and place. There is a great memory that I have from growing up in NE Philadelphia of a scent. When we drove down Roosevelt Blvd, we would pass the Nabisco factory, and the smell of fresh baked cookies was awesome. This is over 20 years ago, and it's vivid in my mind.

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