What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life (29 page)

dead-horse arum fakes the stench
M. C. Stensmyr, I. Urru, et al., “Pollination: Rotting smell of dead-horse arum florets,”
Nature
420 (2002):625–26.

An Australian orchid
F. P. Schiestl, R. Peakall, et al., “The chemistry of sexual deception in an orchid-wasp pollination system,”
Science
302(2003):437–38.

While prospecting there
Kaiser, “Scents from rain forests,” p. 350.

hyperlink from molecule to substance
P. K. Ong and T. E. Acree, “Gas chromatography/olfactory analysis of lychee (
Litchi chinesis
Sonn.),”
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
46 (1998):2282–86; P. K. Ong and T. E. Acree, “Similarities in the aroma chemistry of Gewurztraminer variety wines and lychee (
Litchi chinesis
Sonn.) fruit,”
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
47 (1999):665–70; R. Triqui and N. Bouchriti, “Freshness assessments of Moroccan sardine (
Sardina pilchardus
): Comparison of overall sensory changes to instrumentally determined volatiles,”
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
51 (2003):7540–46; F. Piveteau, S. Le Guen, et al. “Aroma of fresh oysters
Crassostrea gigas
: Composition and aroma note,”
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
48 (2000):4851–57;K. Fukami, S. Ishiyama, et al., “Identification of distinctive volatile compounds in fish sauce,”
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
, 50 (2002):5412–16; L. R. Freeman, G. J. Silverman, et al., “Volatiles produced by microorganisms isolated from refrigerated chicken at spoilage,”
Applied and Environmental Microbiology
32 (1976):222–31.

fewer than 5 percent
W. Grosch, “Evaluation of the key odorants of foods by dilution experiments, aroma models and omission,”
Chemical Senses
26(2001):533–45.

Using aroma models
M. Czerny, F. Mayer, and W. Grosch, “Sensory study on the character impact odorants of roasted arabica coffee,”
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
47 (1999):695–99.

Livestock feeding operations
E. A. Bulliner, J. A. Koziel, et al., “Characterization of livestock odors using steel plates, solid-phase microextraction, and multidimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-olfactometry,”
Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association
56 (2006):1391–1403;D. W. Wright, D. K. Eaton, et al., “Multidimensional gas chromatography-olfactometry for the identification and prioritization of malodors from confined animal feeding operations,”
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
53 (2005):8663–72.

As beets are processed
P. Pihlsgard, M. Larsson, et al., “Volatile compounds in the production of liquid beet sugar,”
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
48 (2000):44–50.

Chapter 3. Freaks, Geeks, and Prodigies

people are not accurate
C. M. Philpott, C. R. Wolstenholme, et al., “Comparison of subjective perception with objective measurement of olfaction,”
Archives Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery
134 (2006):488–90.

formally recognized Federal Register
71, no. 109, p. 32834, June 7, 2006.

1 to 2 percent of the U.S. population
B. A. Nguyen-Khoa, E. L. Goehring, et al., “Epidemiologic study of smell disturbance in 2 medical insurance claims populations,”
Archives of Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery
133 (2007): 748–57.

It takes very little force
J. R. de Kruijk, P. Leffers, et al., “Olfactory function after mild traumatic brain injury,”
Brain Injury
17 (2003):73–78.

recovery can take months
J. Reden, A. Mueller, et al., “Recovery of olfactory function following closed head injury or infections of the upper respiratory tract,”
Archives of Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery
132 (2006):265–69;R. Harris, T. M. Davidson, et al., “Clinical evaluation and symptoms of chemosensory impairment: One thousand consecutive cases from the Nasal Dysfunction Clinic in San Diego,”
American Journal of Rhinology
20(2006):101–8.

psychologically devastating
T. Hummel and S. Nordin, “Olfactory disorders and their consequences for quality of life,”
Acta Oto-Laryngologica
125 (2005):116–21; E. H. Blomqvist, A. Bramerson, et al., “Consequences of olfactory loss and adopted coping strategies,”
Rhinology
42 (2004):189–94.

little data to suggest
D. V. Santos, E. R. Reiter, et al., “Hazardous events associated with impaired olfactory function,”
Archives of Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery
130 (2004):317–19.

young English anosmic
Lucy Mangan, “Scents and sensitivity,”
The Guardian
, July 20, 2004.

reporter who is smell-blind
Karen Ravn, “Sniff…and Spend: Now that the retail industry has caught a whiff of smells’ success, prepare your nose for the marketing onslaught,” and “First Person: Hey, there’s no sense missing what you can’t smell,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 20, 2007.

olfactory hallucinations
M. S. Greenberg, “Olfactory hallucinations,” in M. J. Serby and K. L. Chobor, eds.,
The Science of Olfaction
(New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992), pp. 467–99.

the condition is called parosmia
B. N. Landis, J. Frasnelli, and T. Hummel, “Euosmia: A rare form of parosmia,”
Acta Otolaryngologica
126 (2006):101–3;W. B. Shelley and E. D. Shelley, “The smell of burnt toast: A case report,”
Cutis
65 (2000):225–26; P. Bonfils, P. Avan, et al., “Distorted odorant perception: Analysis of a series of 56 patients with parosmia,”
Archives of Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery
131 (2005):107–12.

persistent hallucinations
C. Lochner, D. J. Stein, “Olfactory reference syndrome: Diagnostic criteria and differential diagnosis,”
Journal of Postgraduate Medicine
49 (2003):328–31.

A German psychologist
N. Klutky, “Geschlechtsunterschiede in der Gedächtnisleistung für Gerüche, Tonfolgen und Farben [Sex differences in memory performance for odors, tone sequences and colors],”
Zeitschrift für experimentelle und angewandte Psychologie
37 (1990):437–46.

“At least five time per week”
Dave Barry, “The Nose Knows,”
Miami Herald
, May 5, 1998.

brain structures
A. Garcia-Falgueras, C. Junque, et al., “Sex differences in the human olfactory system,”
Brain Research
1116 (2006):103–11.

some male-female differences
J. K. Olofsson and S. Nordin, “Gender differences in chemosensory perception and event-related potentials,”
Chemical Senses
29 (2004):629–37.

higher verbal fluency
M. Larsson, M. Lovden, and L. G. Nilsson, “Sex differences in recollective experience for olfactory and verbal information,”
Acta Psychologica
112 (2003):89–103.

dramatic olfactory sex differences
P. Dalton, N. Doolittle, and P. A. Breslin, “Gender-specific induction of enhanced sensitivity to odors,”
Nature Neuroscience
5 (2002):199–200.

most remarkably
Interview with Paul Breslin, July 31, 2007.

within days of birth
H. J. Schmidt and G. K. Beauchamp, “Human olfaction in infancy and early childhood,” in Serby and Chobor, 1992, pp. 378–95.

Tiger’s view
Lionel Tiger,
The Pursuit of Pleasure
(New York: Little, Brown, 1992), p. 64.

rate of decline varies
C. J. Wysocki and A. N. Gilbert, National Geographic Smell Survey, “Effects of age are heterogenous,”
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
561 (1989):12–28.

a simple yes/no format
J. Corwin, “Assessing olfaction: Cognitive and measurement issues,” in Serby and Chobor, 1992, pp. 335–54.

including several recent ones
A. Knaapila, K. Keskitalo, et al., “Genetic component of identification, intensity and pleasantness of odours: A Finnish family study,”
European Journal of Human Genetics
15 (2007):596–602.

“smoking did not reduce”
A. Mackay-Sim, A. N. Johnston, et al., “Olfactory ability in the healthy population: reassessing presbyosmia,”
Chemical Senses
31 (2006):763–71.

Smell Survey reported mixed results
A. N. Gilbert and C. J. Wysocki, “The Smell Survey Results,”
National Geographic
172 (1987):514–25.

“The lack of a statistically significant”
A. Bramerson, L. Johansson, et al., “Prevalence of olfactory dysfunction: The Skovde population-based study,”
Laryngoscope
114 (2004):733–37.

“I have not”
Helen Keller,
The World I Live In
(New York: The Century Co., 1908).

six studies have compared
C. Murphy and W. S. Cain, “Odor identification: The blind are better,”
Physiology & Behavior
37 (1986):177–80; R. S. Smith, R. L. Doty, et al., “Smell and taste function in the visually impaired,”
Perception & Psychophysics
54 (1993):649–55; R. Rosenbluth, E. S. Grossman, and M. Kaitz, “Performance of early-blind and sighted children on olfactory tasks,”
Perception
29 (2000):101–10; C. E. Wakefield, J. Homewood, and A. J. Taylor, “Cognitive compensations for blindness in children: An investigation using odour naming,”
Perception
33 (2004):429–42; H. Diekmann, M. Walger, and H. von Wedel, “Die Riechleistungen von Gehorlosen und Blinden [Sense of smell in deaf and blind patients],”
HNO
42(1994):264–69; O. Schwenn, I. Hundorf, et al., “Können Blinde besser riechen als Normalsichtige? [Do blind persons have a better sense of smell than normal sighted people?],”
Klinische Monatsblätter für Augenheilkunde
219 (2002):649–54.

in three of the six studies
Blind are better: Murphy & Cain 1986; Wakefield et al., 2004; Rosenbluth et al., 2000; blind no better: Diekmann et al., 1994; Schwenn et al., 2002; Smith et al., 1993.

the master’s view
A. A. Brill, “The sense of smell in the neuroses and psychoses,”
The Psychoanalytic Quarterly
1 (1932):17–42.

The original texts
On November 14, 1897, Freud wrote to his colleague Wilhelm Fliess in Berlin and speculated about a biological basis for the psychological repression of sexual impulses; see
The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887–1904
, edited by J. M. Masson (Belknap/Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 278–82.

“audacious, highly speculative”
Sigmund Freud,
Civilization and Its Discontents
, translated by James Strachey with introduction by Peter Gay (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989).

helped devalue smell
Annick Le Guérer, “Olfaction and cognition: A philosophical and psychoanalytic overview,” in C. Rouby, B. Schaal, et al., eds.,
Olfaction, Taste, and Cognition
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 6.

University of Texas study
D. Singh and P. M. Bronstad, “Female body odour is a potential cue to ovulation,”
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences
268 (2001):797–801.

psychologist Paul Rozin
A. Wrzesniewski, C. McCauley, and P. Rozin, “Odor and affect: Individual differences in the impact of odor on liking for places, things and people,”
Chemical Senses
24 (1999):713–21.

psychoanalyst Annick Le Guérer
Le Guérer, in C. Rouby, B. Schaal, et al., eds., 2002, p. 6.

anthropologist David Howes
David Howes, “Freud’s nose: The repression of nasality and the origin of psychoanalytic theory,” in Victoria De Rijke, Lene Østermark-Johansen, and Helen Thomas, eds.,
Nose Book: Representations of the Nose in Literature and the Arts
(London: Middlesex University Press, 2000), pp. 265–81.

a medical disaster zone
Frank J. Sulloway,
Freud, Biologist of the Mind
(New York: Basic Books, 1979), p. 143. See also Max Schur,
Freud: Living and Dying
(International Universities Press, 1972), pp. 77–90 for details of operation; Ernest Jones,
The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud
, vol. 1,
1856–1900: The Formative Years and the Great Discoveries
(New York: Basic Books, 1953), pp. 308–9.

“
No doubt there is a vast difference”
W. H. Hudson, “On the Sense of Smell,”
The Century Magazine
, August 1922, pp. 497–506.

a man-bites-dog story
A. N. Gilbert, K. Yamazaki, et al., “Olfactory discrimination of mouse strains (
Mus musculus
) and major histocompatibility types by humans (
Homo sapiens
),”
Journal of Comparative Psychology
100(1986):262–65.

impressive man-smells-dog story
D. L. Wells and P. G. Hepper, “The discrimination of dog odours by humans,”
Perception
29 (2000):111–15.

dogs can sniff out bladder cancer
C. M. Willis, S. M. Church, et al., “Olfactory detection of human bladder cancer by dogs: Proof of principle study,”
BMJ
329 (2004):712–14; but also see M. Leahy, “Olfactory detection of human bladder cancer by dogs: Cause or association?” and J. S. Welsh, “Olfactory detection of human bladder cancer by dogs: Another cancer detected by ‘pet scan,’” in ibid., 1286–87.

Just by smelling some ice cream
S. Jiamyangyuen, J. F. Delwiche, and W. J. Harper, “The impact of wood ice cream sticks’ origin on the aroma of exposed ice cream mixes,”
Journal of Dairy Science
85 (2002):355–59.

Feynman had a great party trick
Richard P. Feynman, “
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1985).

hand odor is individually distinctive
P. Wallace, “Individual discrimination of humans by odor,”
Physiology & Behavior
19 (1977):577–79.