Our sense of smell may not be as good as dogs', but we are better than earlier thought, says study
Humans have a better sense of smell than previously thought, says study
How good is our sense of smell? The general perception is that human olfactory senses are poor when compared to many other animals like dogs. But now a study says that we can sniff out different odours much more accurately and faster.
Humans can distinguish between two odours presented within a single sniff much more rapidly than previously thought, according to the study published in Nature Human Behaviour Journal.
The study found that the human sense of smell is also attuned to rapid changes in odours, almost similar to how our eyes distinguish between different colours.
Watch: Is sense of smell linked to cognitive health?
The research used a new sniff-triggered apparatus that did a controlled delivery of odorants with a precision of 18 milliseconds.
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For context, a sniff in humans typically lasts one to three seconds.
The research led by Dr Wen Zhou from the Chinese Academy of Sciences tested 229 participants across 649 sessions.
They found the participants could distinguish two separate odours presented in just 60 milliseconds apart.
The ability to distinguish the odours improved with longer time gaps.
The researchers concluded that human olfactory sensitivity is not only quick but also nuanced.
What's more, the ability to sniff out different smells does not rely on conscious knowledge or the amount of odour molecules present.
Also read: Dogs are altering their behaviour after smelling stress in humans: Study
In one experiment, two scents – an apple-like odour and a floral scent – were precisely sequenced and delivered in a controlled manner via tubes of varying lengths.
One scent was set to reach the nose around 120 to 180 milliseconds before the other.
The participants were correctly able to identify the smells, as well as tell which odour came first in 597 out of 952 trials, an accuracy of 63 per cent.
They got similar results when the trials were done on another 70 individuals with odours similar to lemon and onion.
So according to the study, we can sniff out smells at a timescale far faster than what was understood earlier.
“Overall, the discrimination between a pair of temporal mixtures is not dependent on accurately recognising the order of the constituent odorants,” said Zhou.
“Instead, it seems to be driven by a mechanism that operates on a much faster timescale than that involved in the serial recognition of mixture components,” she was quoted as saying in The Guardian.
(With inputs from agencies)
