The Forgotten Sense: The New Science of Smell and the Extraordinary Power of the Nose

The human sense of smell is more potent than commonly believed, according to this entrancing debut. Debunking the myth that humans are “odor-impaired animals,” Olofsson, a psychology professor at Stockholm University, cites a 2015 study that found humans are more sensitive to numerous scents than mice, spider monkeys, and all other animals that researchers looked at, except dogs. He explains that “smells have a unique capacity to evoke memories of childhood” because the olfactory brain shares more connections with the brain’s memory center than do areas associated with other senses. The most fascinating sections explore Olofsson’s contention that olfactory processes are shaped by culture, as when he discusses how the Dassanech people of Ethiopia consider the smell of manure attractive on a man because of its associations with livestock and wealth. Odor perceptions are also intimately bound up with ideas people have about the world, Olofsson posits, describing his own research that found people who reported feeling the most disgusted by body odor tended to rank highly in xenophobia. (He attributes the result to a metaphorical “fear of infection” that draws on racist descriptions of marginalized groups as unhygienic to conflate ingesting harmful substances with immigration.) As enlightening as it is surprising, this stimulates. Agent: Paul Sebes, Sebes & Bisseling Literary. (Jan.)