Your Money or Your Sense of Smell? A Comparative Analysis of the Sensory and Psychological Value of Olfaction.

Rachel S Herz,Martha R Bajec

doi:10.3390/brainsci12030299

Rachel S Herz, Martha R Bajec

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12030299

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Journal: Brain sciences	Publication Date: Feb 23, 2022
Citations: 6	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Brown University, Providence College, Boston College

Abstract

In public discourse, the sense of smell is typically characterized as the least important of the five senses. However, there are very little empirical data on this topic. Recently, much more attention has been brought to the sense of smell since olfactory dysfunction is a primary and often long-term symptom of COVID-19 infection. It was therefore of interest to expand research on the perceived value of olfaction in the current cultural condition. We developed a survey that directly compared the value of the senses of smell, hearing, and vision with each other and in relation to nine common items representing digital, material, personal, and physical commodities of varying social and emotional meaningfulness (phone, $10,000, favorite social media, online shopping, favorite streaming service, dream vacation, pet, hair, little left toe). In total, four hundred and seven female and male respondents comprising two life-stage groups (college students, general public adults) participated in our online survey study during winter–spring of 2021. The results reveal that the sense of smell was perceived as vastly less important than vision and hearing and much less valuable than various common commodities. We also found that life-stage and gender mediated our findings. For example, one-quarter of the college student respondents would give up their sense of smell in order to keep their phone and nearly half of all women would give up their sense of smell to keep their hair. Our data further illustrate that the senses of vision and hearing are valued relatively similarly. A number of questions arise from the present data and suggestions for ways in which our survey can be expanded and altered to address further research are discussed.

Highlights

The sense of smell has been regarded as the least important of the five senses in western culture since at least the writings of Plato [1]
Substantiating the trivial value given to the sense of smell described by Wrzesniewski et al [13], we found that respondents were much more willing to give up their sense of smell for their “little left toe” than they were willing to give up vision or hearing for their little left toe
We plan to use this questionnaire in future investigations which will help determine its validity and replicability, and we welcome any independent assessments. The data from this survey study conducted with a large number of respondents have revealed a number of very important and impactful findings that have never before been detailed in this way

Summary

Introduction

The sense of smell has been regarded as the least important of the five senses in western culture since at least the writings of Plato [1]. In several non-Western cultures, smell plays a major role in rituals and other activities [4,5,6,7,8]; for Andaman Islanders, scents are “vital energies”; and hunter-gatherer groups such as the Semaq Beri of the Malay peninsula have a more extensive and detailed vocabulary for olfactory attributes than they do for color hues [9]. It is the case that the attention, value, and meaning placed on scent in Western culture has risen and fallen dramatically during different historical periods [5,10]

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