The acquisition of odour qualities

Odours can evoke a large range of qualities. Some of these qualities (e.g., sweetness) appear to be acquired through simultaneously experiencing odours mixed with tastes. Acquisition might also occur when two odours are experienced as a mixture. In this case mixture components might acquire each other's qualities. This was tested in two experiments. In the first, subjects repeatedly sniffed two odour mixtures (either AX, BY or AY, BX). Odours mixed with A acquired A's properties and were judged more similar to A than to B. Odours mixed with B were not clearly discriminable. The second experiment used a similar approach except that Odour B was replaced. Subjects now smelled either AX, CY or AY, CX. All components were discriminable. Odours mixed with A acquired A's properties and were judged more similar to A than to C. Although odours mixed with C did not acquire C's qualities due to a confusion of quality terms, odours previously mixed with C were judged as more similar to C than to A. Evidence of other quality exchanges were also obtained. These results suggest that pure odour qualities can be learnt and lend support to William James's (1890) notion of the acquired equivalence/distinctiveness of cues.     

The discrimination of human odour by the dog

In reply to a suggestion made by Galton in 1875, the ability of dogs to discriminate between the odour of human twins was investigated. In a matching-to-sample simultaneous discrimination task, dogs were tested on their ability to discriminate odours from twins differing only in genetic relatedness or only in environmental factors, particularly diet, or from twins identical in both genetic relatedness and environmental factors. Dogs could discriminate between the odours from twins who differed only in environmental factors and between the odours of twins who differed only in genetic relatedness. However, they were unable to discriminate between odours produced by infant twins identical in both genetic relatedness and environmental factors. Thus twins may be discriminated by dogs as long as they differ in genetic relatedness or environmental factors. The possible source of discriminable odours is discussed and how the effects of genes and environment are mediated considered.     

Cognitive compensations for blindness in children: an investigation using odour naming

Historically, blindness has been associated with compensation for the loss of vision by the other senses. However, research to date has focused on perceptual compensations, largely ignoring possible cognitive compensations. We explored the notion that cognitive skills of blind children may facilitate performance in apparently perceptual tasks, by investigating the cognitive factors related to naming a familiar odour. Eighty-three children participated in olfactory and cognitive tasks (thirty-two early-blind, five late-blind, fourteen low-vision, and thirty-two sighted). In the olfactory tasks, the early-blind children performed significantly better than the sighted children on the odour-naming task but not on the odour-sensitivity task. From the cognitive tasks, scores on a nonvisualisable word-pairs task and a sound-word-pairs task were significantly higher for early-blind children and were highly correlated with odour-naming score. The early-blind children outperformed the sighted controls on a task of directed attention. The groups did not differ on memory for a story or for visualisable word pairs. The results suggest that blind children enjoy an advantage in tasks that assess nonvisual memory for paired associates and directed attention, and that superiority on these tasks facilitates performance in the odour-naming task. Other data suggest that sighted children rely on visualisation as a strategy to aid their performance on the cognitive tasks, and are disadvantaged when these strategies cannot be utilised.     

The sequential structure of odour mixture component intensity judgements

The use of linear multivariable time-series modelling, to disentangle sequential stimulus and response processes, is illustrated on a task involving judgements of the intensity of odour mixture components. A satisfactory fit of a model with no more than two lags is shown; the same model can represent diverse behaviour by internal parameter changes. The fundamental contrast between this dynamic approach and traditional static psychophysics is noted.     

An odorant congruent with a colour cue is selectively perceived in an odour mixture

Odour identification can be influenced by colour cues. This study examined the mechanism underlying this colour context effect. We hypothesised that a specific odour component congruent with a colour would be selectively perceived in preference to another odour component in a binary odour mixture. We used a ratio estimation method under two colour conditions, a binary odour mixture (experiment 1) and single chemicals presented individually (experiment 2). Each colour was congruent with one of the odour components. Participants judged the perceived mixture ratio in each odour container on which a colour patch was pasted. An influence of colour was not observed when the odour stimulus did not contain the odour component congruent with the colour (experiment 2); however, the odour component congruent with the colour was perceived as more dominant when the odour stimulus did contain the colour-congruent odorant (experiment 1). This pattern indicates that a colour-congruent odour component is selectively perceived in an odour mixture. This finding suggests that colours can enhance the perceptual representation of the colour-associated component in an odour mixture.     

The Constitution as an Axiomatic System

The Constitution is considered as an informal axiomatic system. The strategy proposed by the authors rests on the following propositions: (1) axioms are considered as contextual definitions of those concepts by means of which they are formulated; and (2) the main requirement for this type of system is internal consistency. The first proposition is necessary for considering the Constitution as an informal axiomatic system, while the second is sufficient, because the approach proposed, apart from consistency, must certainly consider the requirements for formal axiomatic systems, such as independence and completeness. The authors argue that the Constitution can be compared to axiomatic constructions in modern science in the sense that is given in the research on the logic and methodology of deductive sciences. This analogy is appropriate to the extent to which constitutional provisions are interpreted as the basic elements of the legal system, just as in the formal sciences axioms are regarded as basic principles that define the main features of the formal system. This means that the Constitution itself is seen as coherent, consistent discourse that contextually defines the meaning of the basic terms of the legal system.     

Odour memory and odour hedonics in children

The characteristics of olfactory memory during development were investigated and the hypothesis that the pleasantness of smells may be affected by previous associations with pleasant or unpleasant objects or events was tested. This type of emotional memory was compared in the immediate and long-term recognition of olfactory stimuli. Children from three different age groups (mean ages: 6 years 6 months; 8 years 9 months; and 10 years 5 months) were subdivided into two groups. One group was presented with six different odours, each with a slide depicting a pleasant picture. The other group was presented with the odours accompanied by unpleasant pictures. Immediately after stimulus presentation the subjects underwent a recognition test. One month later the subjects underwent a second recognition test, at the end of which they were required to give an evaluation of the pleasantness of each odour on a nine-point scale. At no age level did the pictures matched to the odours affect the recognition score. Olfactory memory varied with age, chiefly because memory decay increased with age, perhaps because of greater proactive interference. With increasing age more rapid decay was set against better immediate recognition. The hypothesis that the hedonic characteristics of odours are partially learned and are affected by events experienced in other modalities was supported.     

The power law as an emergent property

Recent work has shown that the power function, a ubiquitous characteristic of learning, memory, and sensation, can emerge from the arithmetic averaging of exponential curves. In the present study, the forgetting process was simulated via computer to determine whether power curves can result from the averaging of other types of component curves. Each of several simulations contained 100 memory traces that were made to decay at different rates. The resulting component curves were then arithmetically averaged to produce an aggregate curve for each simulation. The simulations varied with respect to the forms of the component curves: exponential, range-limited linear, range-limited logarithmic, or power. The goodness of the aggregate curve's fit to a power function relative to other functions increased as the amount of intercomponent slope variability increased, irrespective of component-curve type. Thus, the power law's ubiquity may reflect the pervasiveness of slope variability across component functions. Moreover, power-curve emergence may constitute a methodological artifact, an explanatory construct, or both, depending on the locus of the effect.     

The Counselor as an Applied Behavioral Scientist

The swirl of change—instant history—coupled with contemporary human problems makes it imperative that counselors shed their complacencies and “truths” in order to doubt, question, and examine all that they now do. Counseling viewed as a highly complex, social-psychological phenomenon demands counselors who are applied behavioral scientists. Our outrageous wordology and one-method-one-technique orientation, along with confused “scientific-versus-humanistic” thinking, has severely impeded progress. Counseling should follow from client problems rather than be a predetermined, prescribed, and stylized activity. Social modeling in groups, systematic desensitization, and contingency management techniques are illustrative of how counselors can function as applied behavioral scientists.     

The Cyborg as an Interpretation of Culture-Nature

The idea of "nature" performs an important cultural work. The cyborg-nature is an attempt to free ourselves from the features of the culturally authorized concepts of nature. The cyborg offers new metaphors to both academic and popular theorizing for comprehending the different ways that sciences and technologies affect our lives, subjectivities, and concepts. The cyborg is a lived reality and a metaphor. Paul Tillich deemed it necessary to have a mythos of technology to explain our technologies and ourselves. He offered "The Technical City" as a symbol for his age. Donna Haraway's cy-borg-figure could function as a symbol to interpret our time and technologies and ourselves.     

Natural sniffing gives optimum odour perception for humans

The characteristics of human sniffing episodes during odour perception have been described in an earlier paper, where it has been suggested that the techniques used by individuals may be close to those providing optimum perception. To investigate this suggestion, threshold and intensity tests with butanol, cyclohexanone, and pentyl acetate have been carried out on twenty-one subjects. Olfactory responses obtained by using natural sniffing techniques were compared with those where the number of sniffs, interval between sniffs, and size of sniffs were varied. The results indicate that it is very difficult to improve on the efficiency of sniffing techniques of individuals and that a single natural sniff provides as much information about the presence and intensity of an odour as do seven or more sniffs. A single natural sniff and the first sniff of a a natural sniffing episode were shown to have similar characteristics and most significantly both were unaffected by changes in the concentration and type of odour. Overall, the results indicate that humans achieve optimum odour perception during threshold and intensity measures with their natural multiple-sniff technique or with a single sniff. For the 'average' human this occurs with a sniff of inhalation rate 30 1 min-1, volume 200 cm3, and duration 0.4 s. The use of several sniffs in a sniffing episode appears to be a confirmatory action rather than a necessary one, except for the perception of odour mixtures where several sniffs are likely to be needed to aid discrimination of the components. Data from the present and earlier study provide the information necessary for the development of a standard olfactometer and standard procedures for measuring the olfactory responses of humans.