Research Design Connection: Smelling Our Way Along

by Sally Augustin, Ph.D. | August 31st, 2015

Face-to-face communication is more than just words, which is why in-the-flesh encounters still need to be supported, and even encouraged. As Pazzaglia reports, “Interpersonal interactions are primarily mediated through vision. However, crucial information concerning other individuals is also captured through different senses. New evidence suggests that [human] body odors can implicitly initiate, filter and guide the integrated perceptions that characterize real human impressions…Body odors…are potent sources of discriminative, affective, and motor knowledge.” In addition, “Body odors…can act as an authenticator of truth and are reliably invoked to shape social relations.” Mariella Pazzaglia. 2015. “Body and Odors: Not Just Molecules, After All.” Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 329-333. Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ …