The nasal cavity has roughly twelve million odor-detecting cells. Each odor-detecting cell has one of about 350 different olfactory receptor proteins and is specialized for sensing a limited number of dormant odor molecules.
These receptor proteins work in different combinations to enable people to detect at least ten thousand distinct scents.
Our brain’s olfactory bulb (the part of the brain that sorts through smells) has a close connection to the oldest part of the human brain, the limbic system. Odor trigger subconscious emotional responses before arriving at the brain’s outermost section, the cerebral cortex (the “reasoning” part of our brain). In most people, this is usually the most underdeveloped or at least underused part!) A great deal of processing of odor is done on a subconscious level. We subconsciously evaluate people.
Ever thought to yourself, “there’s something about that guy I don’t trust?” Well, odds are, you are subconsciously picking up some nuance of body language and/or you’ve subconsciously picked up on a negative odor from him.
According to Glausiusz, research suggests that even at subliminal, undetectable levels, odors [pheromones] can influence our social preferences:
Smell subconsciously facilitates a variety of human social interactions. People use smell to assess a person’s likability, sexual attractiveness and emotional state. They can also use scent to distinguish a stranger from a friend, a male from a female and some on who is gay from someone who is straight.
Other “(s)experts” agree:
Human social judgements and social interactions are at least partially under the control of smells we can’t perceive. (neurologist Jay Gottfried)
Interesting research findings on pheromones
- Some evidence suggests that humans may detect pheromones through special nerves distinct from those that govern smell. (“Sex and the Secret Nerve” by Douglas Fields, in Scientific American Mind, February/March, 2007)
- Each of us has our very own funk fingerprint,a unique scent unlike any other person on earth. It doesn’t matter how much we try to mask it. Just ask any bloodhound.
- Curiously, women are, on average, marginally more sensitive than men to trace odors and are most sensitive to odors when they are ovulating. In fact, some experts believe that a woman’s heightened sense of smell while fertile might aid them in mate selection.
- Studies have shown that a man’s body odor is more important than his appearance. Between the ages of eight and sixteen girls begin to dislike the odor of male sweat. (Psychology Today, September/October 2005:32)
- Conversely, when adult women smell androstatienone (a pheromone in men’s swear) their cortisol levels increase. Cortisol, normally connected with stress, is also associated with sexual arousal.
- People whose clothes smell of pine are perceived to be more successful, intelligent, sociable, sanitary, and attractive than people whose clothes smell of lemon, onion, or smoke.
- A study completed by researchers from the University of Chicago has concluded that women who are breastfeeding emit pheromones that put other omen in the mood for sex.
- These pheromones act as a natural aphrodisiac, putting women in the mood for sex, increasing some women’s libidos by 42 percent.
Source: “Using Their Sense of Smell,” from Mental Dominance, by Dr. Haha Lung