Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking and Welcome to Forward Thinking, a podcast that
Speaker 1: looks at the future. It says, can you smell what
Speaker 1: the rock is cooking? Nine? Jonathan Strickland. I can't believed that.
Speaker 1: M How are you all doing today? Tod? How about you? Joe?
Speaker 1: I'm a little nauseated sitting in a room with the
Speaker 1: three of you, Jonathan, Lauren and Null, because at least
Speaker 1: one of you smells bad, at least one. I just
Speaker 1: I just showered this morning, like right before I came
Speaker 1: into the office, I doused myself an ax body spring
Speaker 1: that explains it clean. And yet, what are we even
Speaker 1: talking about? Smell? Joe? Well, I was just kidding. You're
Speaker 1: as spragrant as ever. Jonathan, I am no. I was
Speaker 1: wondering about smells. Yeh. Is there a future for smells?
Speaker 1: Because frankly, to me, smell is, you know, all all
Speaker 1: of our senses are important, but it's sort of the
Speaker 1: most superfluous one. It's not like I'm a dog and
Speaker 1: I use smell to really navigate the world and find
Speaker 1: the things that interest me, like piles of garbage and
Speaker 1: something under a bunch of dead leaves. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's down there somewhere. No. I I don't really
Speaker 1: use my sense of smell for all anything all that important.
Speaker 1: So does it really matter in our lives? And I
Speaker 1: don't know does it really have that much influence on
Speaker 1: the way we see the world? Yes? All right, So
Speaker 1: if you guys have any suggestions for future episodes of
Speaker 1: forward Thinking, uh no, the short answer is is it absolutely?
Speaker 1: And of course sorry, the follow up question is what's
Speaker 1: the futurist smell? Well? Also, we wanted to mention that
Speaker 1: we're going to be covering how smell can affect us
Speaker 1: and to what extent that that we know of it
Speaker 1: can affect us. And this is sort of part of
Speaker 1: a it's a small part of a bigger discussion that
Speaker 1: we're going to continue in a future episode about the
Speaker 1: things that can influence our decision making processes and whether
Speaker 1: the future is going to involve us uh consciously employing
Speaker 1: those things to perhaps guide us to a brighter, happier future.
Speaker 1: That's not at all orwellian um, Hey, those serious concerns
Speaker 1: are for another day to you. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about stinky stuff and smells in the future of smelling. Yes,
Speaker 1: as we said, the word smell enough. The first thing
Speaker 1: we need to do is actually establish how smell works.
Speaker 1: And fortunately, you know, the three of us all work,
Speaker 1: actually the four of us, because Noel's here to all
Speaker 1: work that we're including our editor in our discussion today.
Speaker 1: Apparently literally is acknowledging his work. Whatever. All four of
Speaker 1: us work for how stuff Works dot com. And one
Speaker 1: of the articles that you can find, one of the
Speaker 1: many amazing articles you can find on there, is how
Speaker 1: Smell Works by Sarah Dowdy. And uh, it's really interesting
Speaker 1: to see how smell actually works. So we sense smells
Speaker 1: using cells called chemo receptors. Yeah, they're in our nasal cavity.
Speaker 1: It's kind of interesting to think about the ways that
Speaker 1: you're different. Body senses are based on different types of
Speaker 1: matter and energy. So your eyes are for the electromagnetic spectrum,
Speaker 1: a particular part of it. Your ears are for vibrations
Speaker 1: of matter in the air, right, actual physical phenomena. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and your nose and your tongue, so smell and taste
Speaker 1: are for they're basically a chemistry set. Yeah, chemical particles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they essentially the shape of a molecule. Pretty much. I
Speaker 1: mean I'm oversimplifying. Yes, we think the shape of the
Speaker 1: molecule largely defines what it smells and or tastes. Like,
Speaker 1: So you have odorance, that's the stuff what stinks right, Um,
Speaker 1: this would be the little stinky line coming out of
Speaker 1: Peppy Lap you when you see those old cartoons. Uh,
Speaker 1: those stimulate the chemo receptors, which pass on electrical impulse
Speaker 1: to the brain. The brain decodes that message and interprets
Speaker 1: it as a specific odor, which leads us to the
Speaker 1: perception of smell. So let's let's that's the big picture,
Speaker 1: big picture, base level. Let it go straight into your
Speaker 1: nose exactly. We're gonna we're gonna dive into the nose.
Speaker 1: We're gonna pick it clean. Folks. Here we go. Alright, So,
Speaker 1: like how you had to wind up to that one.
Speaker 1: That's great. So you've got these olfactory receptor cells in
Speaker 1: your nose. Uh, they are neurons. So these are a
Speaker 1: type of neuron. Basically, anything in your body that's sensing
Speaker 1: anything is neural. Yeah. So so the neurons are complete
Speaker 1: wood and drites. That's typical. Expect that with the neuron.
Speaker 1: Those are the little squidly things that kind of extend
Speaker 1: to poke out. So they have the dentrits with these
Speaker 1: particular cells have old factory hairs, which I'll talk about
Speaker 1: in a second, and they line a part of your
Speaker 1: nasal cavity. It's the olfactory epithelium. It's actually a very
Speaker 1: small bit. It's maybe like an inch square over yeah,
Speaker 1: inside inside your sna And then that's it. You do
Speaker 1: all you're smelling with this tiny little bit here. That's it,
Speaker 1: and uh, mucus covers it, you know, good old snot
Speaker 1: covers it, right, because mucus is actually a solvent for
Speaker 1: many odorants. A lot of odorants are either alcohol or
Speaker 1: water soluble um, and so so they help break down
Speaker 1: any chemicals that happen to be floating around in the air, right,
Speaker 1: so that your olfactories cells can actually interpret what that
Speaker 1: is and thus send a signal to your brain of
Speaker 1: what smell that is. Yeah, your mucus does stuff, Yeah,
Speaker 1: cool stuff. That's stuff that's actually useful as opposed to
Speaker 1: just making everything gross. Wait a minute, then I have
Speaker 1: a question. How come when your nose is full of snot,
Speaker 1: you don't smell super strong? Well at that point, at
Speaker 1: that point, the covering is so great that nothing's getting
Speaker 1: to the the olfactory sensor cells anyway. Okay, I see,
Speaker 1: it's like a little goes along. It's a cruel joke,
Speaker 1: is what it is. It's also cleaning off well, I mean,
Speaker 1: the basic function of that is is that it's trying
Speaker 1: to get rid of any bad stuff that's gotten. It's
Speaker 1: it's essentially trapping various types of external stuff that shouldn't
Speaker 1: be there and trying to let you get rid of
Speaker 1: it either by swallowing it or blowing out your nose. Hey,
Speaker 1: how that? How the cool is that? Walk me through
Speaker 1: the love story of a chemical molecule and the and
Speaker 1: the old factory cell in your nose? All right, here
Speaker 1: we go. So you've got a volatile substance, all right.
Speaker 1: So volatile substance is something that can easily turn into
Speaker 1: a gas. Something that can't turn into a gas, something
Speaker 1: that's non volatile doesn't really have a smell, yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's not giving off anything for you to smell. It's
Speaker 1: not actually getting in your nose. You can't get any
Speaker 1: Brownian motion out of that staying in the stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the volatile stuff that it can turn to a
Speaker 1: guess that's what gives off the odorants, which are essentially
Speaker 1: just airborne molecules. Some of them find their way into
Speaker 1: your nasal cavity. Now, the molecules bind with the olfactory
Speaker 1: hairs that I talked about earlier. They're on those dendrites
Speaker 1: of the receptor cells. The mucus dissolves the odorants that
Speaker 1: need to be dissolved, and then the receptor cell is
Speaker 1: stimulated by this molecule. And here's where we get into
Speaker 1: some academic disagreement about what's going on. There have been
Speaker 1: a lot of studies that have looked into the science
Speaker 1: of smells, and the fact is, like a lot of
Speaker 1: things with the brain, we don't have the full story yet,
Speaker 1: so we don't necessarily know which of the various models
Speaker 1: is the most correct. But according to Richard Axel and
Speaker 1: Linda Buck, who did extensive research into old factory sensing,
Speaker 1: they say, each receptor cell has only one type of
Speaker 1: receptor and can only detect a small number of related molecules,
Speaker 1: and it would respond more intensely to some molecules than other.
Speaker 1: So let's say that it's ideal for sensing molecule A,
Speaker 1: but it can also sense molecules Z and B. But
Speaker 1: when molecule A hits it, it gets a really strong sense,
Speaker 1: and then you would be able to perceive that smell
Speaker 1: really well. If it's Z or B, it still reacts,
Speaker 1: but not at the same intensity as it would if
Speaker 1: it were molecule A. All right, that's that's their their hypothesis.
Speaker 1: And so essentially you would have a lot of specialized
Speaker 1: receptor cells, lots of different types in your nasal cavity.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you would only be able to detect us very
Speaker 1: small number of smells. But obviously we can detect a
Speaker 1: fairly wide range, not as wide as some other animals,
Speaker 1: but but pretty impressive. And they also found that three
Speaker 1: percent of human genes are coded for olfactory receptor types.
Speaker 1: Pretty impressive when you consider it. Like again, like you
Speaker 1: were saying, Joe, we perceive smell as being not that
Speaker 1: important compared to some of our other senses, but you
Speaker 1: know from it sid or hearing, from a genetic standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's pretty important. Um. Meanwhile, Luca Turin has an alternative
Speaker 1: hypothesis and suggest that instead of a large number of
Speaker 1: specialized olfactory receptor cells, we may have fewer specialized cells,
Speaker 1: like a smaller number of specializations that can detect a
Speaker 1: wider spectrum of odors through quantum vibration. That sounds like
Speaker 1: one of those things made up in the screenplay to
Speaker 1: explain Captain America's arm reverse the polarity, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So in this sense, it would be the actual vibration
Speaker 1: of the molecule itself and less about the shape of
Speaker 1: the molecule, although even Turin does not go so far
Speaker 1: as to say the molecular shape doesn't matter. The principal
Speaker 1: hypothesis is that the quantum vibration is what ultimately determines
Speaker 1: the signal that gets sent to the brain. At any rate,
Speaker 1: a signal gets sent to the brain, and then your
Speaker 1: brain ends up interpreting what that signal actually is. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. But what I was actually wondering about this
Speaker 1: about the sense of smell and the future of the
Speaker 1: sense of smell, is the more we understand about our
Speaker 1: bodies and brains, is there a reason to think that
Speaker 1: we might be discovering the sense of smell is actually
Speaker 1: more important to humans than we realize. It definitely is
Speaker 1: very influential. Oh sure, well, I mean the thing is
Speaker 1: that when it gets into your brain, it's not just
Speaker 1: your brain going like that's an orange. It's your brain
Speaker 1: going that's an orange, and I have feelings about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as it turns out putting it. You know, when we
Speaker 1: say it sends messages to the brain, we're not talking
Speaker 1: about it just throws a message at the brain and
Speaker 1: hopes that it gets to where it needs to go.
Speaker 1: Those messages go to a specific location. The olfactory bulb,
Speaker 1: which is part of the limbic system limit system, has
Speaker 1: a couple of other really important parts in it, like
Speaker 1: a the campus memories, right yeah, yeah, it helps you
Speaker 1: form associations specifically, and the magdala. We've got some important
Speaker 1: parts here. These are These are all parts of the
Speaker 1: brain that we tend to to associate with things like memory, mood, emotions,
Speaker 1: the In fact, the limbic system often a lot of
Speaker 1: people call it the emotional part of the brain. Right,
Speaker 1: So smell is right there with it. Now, don't go
Speaker 1: so far as to suggest that smell and memory are
Speaker 1: are directly entwined where they have a one to one relationship. However,
Speaker 1: smells can be associated with memory in a way that's
Speaker 1: very tightly correlated. It's not um you know, you don't
Speaker 1: wouldn't say that a smell automatically creates a memory. But
Speaker 1: if you're creating a memory, like if you are committing
Speaker 1: something to a memory, you're creating that neural pathway for
Speaker 1: the first time, and as smells associated with it, then
Speaker 1: the next time you encounter that smell can trigger the memory. Exactly.
Speaker 1: You've probably experienced this yourself if you smell something that
Speaker 1: you're that your grandmother specifically cooks and you had this
Speaker 1: this wonderful childhood memory of of of eating dinner with
Speaker 1: your grandparents then or you know, just just just different,
Speaker 1: different smells all the time. I can tell you, I
Speaker 1: can tell you the one of the most powerful, uh
Speaker 1: emotional reactions I have from a smell that I encountered
Speaker 1: first when I was a kid, which is the smell
Speaker 1: of a chlorinated indoor pool. As soon as I smell that,
Speaker 1: I go back to when I was a kid taking
Speaker 1: swimming lessons for the first time. I took swimming lessons
Speaker 1: in an indoor pool at what was then Gainesville College.
Speaker 1: It's not part of the University of Georgia system. And
Speaker 1: it was a very stressful kind of traumatic experience for
Speaker 1: me when it first started. And then I ended up
Speaker 1: absolutely loving it by the time it was over. So
Speaker 1: when I encounter the smell, I actually do feel a
Speaker 1: sense of physical apprehension. And even if I'm not, like,
Speaker 1: if if I go through any sort of gem that
Speaker 1: has that kind of like they have an indoor pool
Speaker 1: or whatever, and I just walked by, it instantly triggers
Speaker 1: that memory of five year old Jonathan, Uh, scared stiff
Speaker 1: about jumping in water that's over his head. But it's
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's true. It even now I
Speaker 1: am many years separated from five year old Jonathan, but
Speaker 1: it still happens. Yeah. For me, it's a charcoal grill
Speaker 1: on a summer day takes me back to childhood. I
Speaker 1: feel I feel like I want a dill pickle. Well,
Speaker 1: that's cool, that's a very that's a very sweet memory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things where like, and of
Speaker 1: course there are other smells that do this for me
Speaker 1: as as well. It's just the pool one is so like,
Speaker 1: it's just so vibrant. And even knowing that my memories
Speaker 1: of that time are not accurate, We've discussed this, how
Speaker 1: memories are fallible. You cannot count on a memory being
Speaker 1: an exact representation of what really happened to you in
Speaker 1: some past event. Even knowing that it's still very evocative.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it's really hard to to separate those out. Um.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to take our word for it. No,
Speaker 1: there are actual scientific studies that have shown how how
Speaker 1: smell can affect not just memory, but our moods overall
Speaker 1: and and our emotions. So I read about this one
Speaker 1: study that was conducted by Rutgers University psychology professor Jeannette
Speaker 1: Havevilyn Jones, and she used floral sense in an experiment
Speaker 1: in which people were to describe three life events, one
Speaker 1: in the distant past, one in their near past, and
Speaker 1: one potential event in their future, so something that could
Speaker 1: be possible down the line. And they also had to
Speaker 1: interact with the mind. Terrifying right now, they interact with
Speaker 1: the mind. They had to interact with the mind. There
Speaker 1: there could this interaction be described as running away. It
Speaker 1: could have been, in fact, and I'll get to something
Speaker 1: that's similar to that in a second. Now that the
Speaker 1: the direction they were given was to instruct the mind
Speaker 1: to act out an emotion aociated with the memory from
Speaker 1: their distant past, so a childhood memory that was the
Speaker 1: direction they got. So they had a they had a
Speaker 1: control room that was a neutral scent there was no
Speaker 1: scent there, and they had the experimental room that had
Speaker 1: a floral scent pumped into it. And they found that
Speaker 1: the subjects who were in the floral scented room described
Speaker 1: their memories and the possible future event with more positive
Speaker 1: and happy language. They actually would went through all the
Speaker 1: descriptions and flagged all the words that had any kind
Speaker 1: of emotional attachment to them, And they discovered that those
Speaker 1: who were in that floral scented room were more positive
Speaker 1: and happy with their accounts, and the ones in the
Speaker 1: neutral room used less frequently they would use that language,
Speaker 1: they might use more neutral or even negative language in
Speaker 1: some of their memories. And when it came to the
Speaker 1: interaction with the mine, they found that the participants in
Speaker 1: the floral scented room would move toward or actually touched
Speaker 1: the mind in order to instruct how to act out
Speaker 1: this emotion, whereas only fift pent of the folks in
Speaker 1: the neutral room did. Yeah. So, now, granted, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta keep in mind, like I don't
Speaker 1: know how large the sample sizes were, right, but still
Speaker 1: very interesting. And the conclusion here is that sense can
Speaker 1: shape our moods. And here's the crazy thing. You remember
Speaker 1: I said that there was that one room that was
Speaker 1: neutral and one room that had that floral scent. Well,
Speaker 1: the floral set was actually undetectable. The scent was there,
Speaker 1: but it was below the threshold of human detection. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't even have to be conscious of the scent
Speaker 1: for it to affect you. And that's what I thought
Speaker 1: was amazing. These smells can be what's you know, there's
Speaker 1: subliminal smells. You don't even know about it. So it's
Speaker 1: it's so faint as to be undetectable, and it can
Speaker 1: still affect our behavior and decision making. So another study
Speaker 1: that shows this was a Northwestern University Uh well, actually
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Northwestern University cited the study. It was published
Speaker 1: in Psychological Science, in which subjects were presented with a
Speaker 1: neutral face. They would look at the really a series
Speaker 1: of neutral faces? Is there really such a thing as
Speaker 1: a neutral face? If you play Dungeons and Dragons, there
Speaker 1: is a series of neutral faces, so that I assume
Speaker 1: they mean expressionless, chaotic neutral face. There's there's a there's
Speaker 1: an expressions yea, or or possibly an open screen, but
Speaker 1: at anyway, these were expressionless faces, a series of them,
Speaker 1: and you had again a control group and an experimental group.
Speaker 1: The experimental subjects were exposed to a sub threshold scent,
Speaker 1: and that scent could either be pleasant so that was
Speaker 1: like a citrusy sort of lemony scent another subliminal scent,
Speaker 1: or it could be an unpleasant scent, which was described
Speaker 1: as being sweaty. I guess, so if you could actually
Speaker 1: smell it, it would be pretty nasty. But again it
Speaker 1: was below detectable levels, and the study on that those
Speaker 1: who breathe in the pleasant scent commented that the neutral
Speaker 1: face was likable. They said, you know, this is a
Speaker 1: likable sort of person. They'd go through the the different
Speaker 1: faces and that be their reaction, and those who smelled
Speaker 1: the sweaty one will be less likely said it's not
Speaker 1: so likable an unpleasant person. So again the conclusion appears
Speaker 1: to be that these smells that we cannot necessarily consciously
Speaker 1: detect can still affect our moods and thus affect our
Speaker 1: impressions of things that we see and encounter. Sure, I
Speaker 1: see where you're going, but but does that have any effect.
Speaker 1: I mean on larger issues, like like our actual decision
Speaker 1: making processes. Let me let me paint a scenario. Just
Speaker 1: this is this is going to take smell out of
Speaker 1: the equation. Let me just paint a scenario. Let's say
Speaker 1: you have had an amazing day like it has just
Speaker 1: everything has gone well for you. You're feeling good, positive
Speaker 1: about yourself, You've got great self image. Everything is. It's
Speaker 1: just one of those days where you're just happy. It's
Speaker 1: been nothing but green lights and eyebrow compliments. That's right.
Speaker 1: Strangers on the street coming up to you offering free
Speaker 1: shrimp cocktail at some point. That's not a great day
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. Necessarily, especially on a summer day in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: You do not want shrimp cocktail. Um, but I'm saying,
Speaker 1: well iced, you know, alright, cocktail sauce. Let me get
Speaker 1: to my point here. And anyway, you have an amazing
Speaker 1: day and at the end of that day, someone approaches
Speaker 1: you and asks if you would like to donate to
Speaker 1: a cause that you actually do support. You might be
Speaker 1: likely to actually do that because you're feeling great, You're
Speaker 1: in a very positive mood, and you want to do something.
Speaker 1: You want to pay it forward. You want to keep
Speaker 1: this positive stuff going. Now, let's say you've had the
Speaker 1: worst day ever. It's just been awful. Everything's gone wrong,
Speaker 1: all red lights, rainy day, outside boss has chewed you
Speaker 1: out for something that was totally not your fault. Random
Speaker 1: stranger on the street offered you really bad shrimp cocktail.
Speaker 1: Nobody liked your eyebrows. No one liked your eyebrows. It's
Speaker 1: the worst day ever. And you come home and your
Speaker 1: encounter you encounter that person and it may still be
Speaker 1: a cause that you really believe in, but your mood
Speaker 1: is so bad that you may be less likely to
Speaker 1: support it because you're kind of wrapped up in this
Speaker 1: really crappy mood you're in. And yeah, you say, you say,
Speaker 1: screw those hedgehogs. I am not donating, they're rescuing. In fact,
Speaker 1: I will kick a hedgehog if there was one in
Speaker 1: front of me, And you wouldn't really do it, but
Speaker 1: you're thinking it because you're just in such a rotten mood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But one of the things about that scenario you've described
Speaker 1: is that we're usually conscious enough to be able to
Speaker 1: recognize that our emotions are influencing our decision making. In
Speaker 1: a situation like that and in extremes perhaps, yes, and
Speaker 1: that was an example of extremes obvious. No, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: I think we're going in the same direction here, So
Speaker 1: you might not donate to something that later you think, Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I really should have given. I was just
Speaker 1: in a bad mood. I've had a bad day. You
Speaker 1: hear people use I've had a bad day as an
Speaker 1: excuse for their behavior all the time. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: they realize that it changes what kind of person they are.
Speaker 1: But when we have our behavior affected by subliminal stimula, yeah,
Speaker 1: when you're unaware that there's even something affecting your behavior,
Speaker 1: you could actually be put into something like that bad
Speaker 1: mood position without knowing you've been there. You don't recognize
Speaker 1: that you've had your behavior altered in such a way.
Speaker 1: And this is what's leading us to the power of
Speaker 1: smell and its effect on our ability to make decisions. Now,
Speaker 1: one thing about decisions is a lot of our decisions
Speaker 1: are based upon our memories. Right. We we remember previous
Speaker 1: events that are at least in some way analogous to
Speaker 1: our current situation, and then we end up making a
Speaker 1: decision based on that and it may not be something
Speaker 1: that's directly from our past. It may be a story
Speaker 1: we heard from a friend. So for example, let's say
Speaker 1: I'm out looking for a place to eat and I
Speaker 1: happen to see a restaurant, or maybe even I'm just
Speaker 1: walking around and I decide I want a particular type
Speaker 1: of food because I'm smelling it, but I don't even
Speaker 1: realize it, and I think back to a story of
Speaker 1: friend told about having horrible food poisoning with this one
Speaker 1: particular type of food, and then I'm like, oh no,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't want to go there. It In part
Speaker 1: of it, it means that the smells might trigger certain memories,
Speaker 1: which in a in turn can affect our current decisions.
Speaker 1: And maybe we have a spectrum of memories about that
Speaker 1: particular subject, but the smell is triggering specific memories within
Speaker 1: that spectrum and not triggering other memories. Thus it's influencing
Speaker 1: us to one choice over the other choices. That's kind
Speaker 1: of an interesting way to think about it. But just
Speaker 1: imagine that you're in a situation where you have to
Speaker 1: make a decision and you have several choices ahead of you.
Speaker 1: In your past, you've got plenty of experience that would
Speaker 1: have a pretty comp lex decision making process. But because
Speaker 1: of a certain scent, you are leaning towards just a
Speaker 1: couple of those memories, and that's what influences you to
Speaker 1: make your choice. The choice isn't even up to you,
Speaker 1: it's up to the damn smell and the memory. Now,
Speaker 1: like we were saying, moods also affect our decision making process.
Speaker 1: You know, I used the two extreme examples, but that
Speaker 1: would end up causing us not necessarily to to definitively
Speaker 1: make one choice over the other. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: suggest that free will doesn't exist and we are all
Speaker 1: whims to the external influences around us, but that's probably
Speaker 1: true there they are at least influential, right, And I've
Speaker 1: even seen some people who suggest, hey, as long as
Speaker 1: you're aware of it, it's okay. But as we've already established,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be aware of it, right. It
Speaker 1: can be below that threshold and still affect you, So
Speaker 1: being aware of it is not really that's moot at
Speaker 1: this point. Not if someone's pumping enough scent for you
Speaker 1: to pick up on it. Sure you could say, oh,
Speaker 1: I smell that, but can be like, hey, realtor you're
Speaker 1: totally baking chocolate chip cookies or at least have a
Speaker 1: candle it right, So then I'll end up buying this
Speaker 1: house then that I don't want. I think they have
Speaker 1: a spritzer can of chocolate chip cookie smell. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I need that. Let me look it up, right? We
Speaker 1: should we should do another We should do another show
Speaker 1: about how how that stuff works, because that is fascinating.
Speaker 1: We actually could. I think that would be a great video, honestly. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've got an idea now, chocolate chip cookie spray.
Speaker 1: I'm finding it back. That's just awful. Now wait if
Speaker 1: that actually sprays chocolate chip cookies, it's awesome. I I
Speaker 1: don't need air sool eyes chocolate chip cookies. You do,
Speaker 1: because that way you get a baking sheet. You just go.
Speaker 1: I do not believe in food coming in spray cans.
Speaker 1: This calls itself cologne spray, but it's chocolate chip cookie
Speaker 1: by Demeter for women. I'm looking online at any ray.
Speaker 1: Imperceptible odors can influence us, so awareness is not really
Speaker 1: a factor. Right. We might end up being influenced in
Speaker 1: ways that we cannot be aware of. We're incapable of it.
Speaker 1: Where our consciousness cannot detect that level. It makes you
Speaker 1: wonder how much we've got corporate scientists doing a secret
Speaker 1: little experiments to study exactly how they can tweak our
Speaker 1: behavior in the store. There are certainly rumors about that
Speaker 1: going on. Well, yeah, I mean like there's there's the
Speaker 1: story about uh. And I should say this is a
Speaker 1: story that I haven't corroborated. I have not actually done
Speaker 1: the research. But the story about Disney pumping in the
Speaker 1: smell of fresh baked cookies in Main Street, USA to
Speaker 1: give that kind of home feeling as you're walking down now, grant,
Speaker 1: I imagine that's a perceptible level of cookie smell, and
Speaker 1: not necessarily the below the threshold, because there are a
Speaker 1: lot of other smells you're gonna encounter in a in
Speaker 1: a group of people that large, especially if you have
Speaker 1: to be going to say the Magic Kingdom and Walt
Speaker 1: Disney World Florida and the middle of summer, You're gonna
Speaker 1: get a lot of smells. That's all I'm saying. Um,
Speaker 1: some block for example, as a as a not totally
Speaker 1: gross version, Yeah, yeah, some pleasant smells or at least
Speaker 1: neutral smells, right, But there are plenty of examples of
Speaker 1: people using smells, whether perceptible or not, to try and
Speaker 1: influence people's behaviors. Marketers are using it a lot. In fact,
Speaker 1: they you know you'll hear about We mentioned the real
Speaker 1: estate agents using that cookie smell or baked bread smell
Speaker 1: to kind of create a sense of home when you
Speaker 1: when they're showing off a house to a prospective buyer.
Speaker 1: What about retail, like, if you actually go in a store,
Speaker 1: what do you make somebody smell to get them to
Speaker 1: buy your junk Nike? Actually, they funded a study to
Speaker 1: look into this, and the study found that by pumping
Speaker 1: in a floral scent into a store, you would inspire
Speaker 1: customers to buy more shoes, and more more expensive shoes.
Speaker 1: So you go into a shoe store too. Unrelated statements, No,
Speaker 1: I was specifically yes, Yes, I had, I had. I
Speaker 1: had one specific point following Joe, I'm glad you. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you make the observation Lauren, because that is important.
Speaker 1: Lawrens just trying to get some free Nikes. I you
Speaker 1: know I wouldn't not take I'm gonna have to parse
Speaker 1: that sentence in a second. I get all my Nikes
Speaker 1: from the dark. Webb explains why you always get like
Speaker 1: two that are are for the left foot. The swooshes
Speaker 1: backwards at any rate. Nike found, according to the or
Speaker 1: at least the people who performed the study, found that
Speaker 1: this floral scent would inspire people to spend more money.
Speaker 1: And in fact, that's something that I've seen repeated in
Speaker 1: another example. Although I hastened to add I could not
Speaker 1: find the specific source of this fact, so it could
Speaker 1: be apocryphal. But the share gossip at me. It was
Speaker 1: it was that the Las Vegas Hilton, which is now
Speaker 1: called Westgate. It was Las Vegas Hilton, then it was
Speaker 1: l v H. That was Las Vegas Hotel, now it's Westgate.
Speaker 1: Uh found that pumping in floral sense encouraged gambling. It actually,
Speaker 1: uh it resulted in gambler spending fifty more time at
Speaker 1: slot machines when the sense were present, So the idea
Speaker 1: being apparently that it made people happy and motivated to
Speaker 1: continue gambling, to continue plunking coins into slot machines. You know,
Speaker 1: as we learn more about how smells influence our brains
Speaker 1: for positive or negative purposes, or maybe for a purpose
Speaker 1: that you know, you might be conflicted about, like would
Speaker 1: you call it positive or negative that you can make
Speaker 1: somebody more likely to buy something. It makes you wonder
Speaker 1: how fine tuned we can get with the way we
Speaker 1: manage people's behavior through sense, and if it will be
Speaker 1: a thing in the future for you know, people with
Speaker 1: a very solid base of smell, you know, behavioral science
Speaker 1: based on smells, that they're going to be pumping artificial
Speaker 1: sense out all over the place to try to get
Speaker 1: you to behave the way they want, you know, like
Speaker 1: like I, I want to make someone feel happy but
Speaker 1: in a slightly self conscious way and therefore need to
Speaker 1: buy way more stuff that will help them be better. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the way we imagine this happening today is like in
Speaker 1: physical spaces like stores. Okay, so you you understand that
Speaker 1: maybe when you go into a hardware store, they're going
Speaker 1: to encourage you to buy an extra set of two
Speaker 1: by fours and and an extra chainsaw and a wheelbarrow
Speaker 1: by pumping in the smell of flowers or baking chocolate
Speaker 1: chip cookies. They might have a good stock of science
Speaker 1: they're working on and they know that this gets results.
Speaker 1: But I wonder how much this can be capitalized on
Speaker 1: once we have artificial smell generating media devices once we
Speaker 1: have that people are working on that thing. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean people have been working on that kind of thing
Speaker 1: for years with ridiculous junk like the smell O Vision
Speaker 1: or the sense O Rama. That was that virtual reality
Speaker 1: thing that would blow sense of like things like like
Speaker 1: evergreen sense in your face as you were looking at
Speaker 1: evergreen footage in this video screen. Sure, and and I
Speaker 1: guess a lot of like like the rides of Disney
Speaker 1: World have that kind of thing, and then some of
Speaker 1: the epcut stuff too, like the smell of charcoal or
Speaker 1: oranges and um, the big golf ball. Yeah, man, you
Speaker 1: all really know about your Disney sense. I've been been
Speaker 1: there a lot. Okay, Well anyway, No, so this isn't
Speaker 1: exactly anything new. It's just more that, yes, people are
Speaker 1: still trying to create electronic media of devices that generate smells.
Speaker 1: And one of the most recent versions of this was
Speaker 1: something I was reading about the other day. I was
Speaker 1: trying to make sure this wasn't some kind of elaborate
Speaker 1: April Fools Day joke or hoax, but I checked the
Speaker 1: dates on these articles that they were not April one,
Speaker 1: So I think this is all for real. It's a
Speaker 1: project that as far as I can tell, is for real,
Speaker 1: and it's led by the biomedical engineer David Edwards of Harvard.
Speaker 1: He's been promoting a device called the O phone, or
Speaker 1: in the most recent the O phone, or the Phone
Speaker 1: duo or in the most recent incarnation, I think it's
Speaker 1: just been reduced to the OH notes odor So I
Speaker 1: think so, yeah, oder phone, Yes, it would be. This
Speaker 1: would be an electronic device that supplies you with tiny
Speaker 1: bursts of carefully engineered since which are contained on things
Speaker 1: called OH chips. There were a few articles about this
Speaker 1: last year because they launched an indie go go campaign
Speaker 1: to try to get some funding. I don't think they
Speaker 1: achieved their funding goal, but as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: they're still trying to go through with this project and
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, O phone, OH notes.
Speaker 1: The general idea is that you've got a device that
Speaker 1: supplies you with these engineered packets of smell that can
Speaker 1: be sort of tagged as metadata on top of other things.
Speaker 1: So the original idea I read about was that you
Speaker 1: might take a picture with your phone and then send
Speaker 1: somebody that picture with this app, and then with the app,
Speaker 1: you would be able to tag the picture with some
Speaker 1: scent combination. So if you took a picture of a
Speaker 1: field of roses, you could include a smell that was
Speaker 1: a floral smell, perhaps even the rose smell, and that
Speaker 1: would be what would admit on the mobile device or
Speaker 1: whatever it was that the other person is using to
Speaker 1: access the thing you sent or more complicated lee And
Speaker 1: if it's a field of roses, for example, it could
Speaker 1: be that rose smell plus a little bit of like
Speaker 1: a grass shrubbery smell, plus maybe some like earth smell, Yeah,
Speaker 1: plus the smell of clowns with chainsaws in the background.
Speaker 1: I was about to say this, This to me sounds
Speaker 1: like it could potentially lead to a whole new level
Speaker 1: of trolling, Like just just you just put the most
Speaker 1: foul sense and and pair it was something that looks pleasant, beautiful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then of course that trick only will really work
Speaker 1: on somebody you know, five six times. Yeah. Now, So
Speaker 1: the version of this product they were talking about last
Speaker 1: year had it had sort of a smelling station, so
Speaker 1: it was known as the O Phone Duo, and it
Speaker 1: would be this kind of cylindrical pipe like object that
Speaker 1: would connect to your you know, your smartphone, because obviously
Speaker 1: your smartphone can't make smells at you, So this station
Speaker 1: would have to can make a burning electronic smell. But
Speaker 1: that's about it, and that's very brief smell o zone.
Speaker 1: This station would have to be there to release the smell.
Speaker 1: And in the end, I think they might be able
Speaker 1: to create a device like this could that could have
Speaker 1: a very wide range of different smells that could pull
Speaker 1: from because it was talking about how it can have
Speaker 1: lots of tiny little chambers that release different smells and
Speaker 1: different combinations to create sort of a symphony of aromas.
Speaker 1: And to what extent can we imagine that devices like
Speaker 1: these that generate smells could help further control us, even
Speaker 1: without us going out into physical spaces. So let's say, uh,
Speaker 1: campaign ad on on the YouTube video you're watching shows
Speaker 1: you the face of the political opponent, and they give
Speaker 1: you a bad person smell from your device, or you
Speaker 1: are online doing some online shopping and they pump that
Speaker 1: floral scent into your home or your or you know,
Speaker 1: the tray in car wherever you're sitting while you're doing
Speaker 1: your online shopping or whatever it is. First of all,
Speaker 1: I welcome the floral set being pumped into the train.
Speaker 1: I welcome that now or in a less marketing conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory kind of way, that could be fascinating for for
Speaker 1: adding yet another dimension to home movies. Sure, I mean,
Speaker 1: and I think that's why these kind of devices would
Speaker 1: be envisioned in the first place. Like you can look
Speaker 1: at a picture of somebody's somebody's nice meal on Instagram
Speaker 1: and it actually releases meal smell. I think, I think
Speaker 1: the smell of that meal and not just a generic
Speaker 1: meal smell. The interesting thing I mentioned to Joe before
Speaker 1: this podcast, in my mind is that at least from
Speaker 1: a behavioral standpoint, it appears, and if we're talking about
Speaker 1: subliminal smells where you can't detect it consciously, it appears
Speaker 1: that as long as it's something that is that you
Speaker 1: would associate with positive outcomes, it doesn't matter what the
Speaker 1: smell is, right, And if you associate with negative outcomes,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what the smell is. So in other words,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't necessarily have to have a smell that accompanies
Speaker 1: the picture of the meal. If all you want to
Speaker 1: do is inspire the person to go out and get
Speaker 1: that meal, you would just have to have something positive.
Speaker 1: I was talking about more as an entertainment value oh sure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if it's perceptible, then obviously it would just be weird
Speaker 1: to start getting like mixed messages of one sense telling
Speaker 1: you one thing and everything else telling you something else.
Speaker 1: That just be it would just be disconcerting, or at
Speaker 1: least at least you'd be like, who decided to do
Speaker 1: it like that? So when we were talking about the
Speaker 1: possibility of having these devices, one of the limiting factors
Speaker 1: is how many canisters of chemicals do you have to
Speaker 1: create the various sense and you know, and what would
Speaker 1: be the bare minimum number of canisters you would need
Speaker 1: to create a wide array of sense. And my argument
Speaker 1: was that if it's the subliminal type thing, you won't
Speaker 1: really just need good and bad. It's really now I
Speaker 1: am a gend that bad is a lot easier to
Speaker 1: achieve than good because you can never be certain what
Speaker 1: kind of association someone is going to have with the
Speaker 1: scent that you generate. It is possible that, even if
Speaker 1: it's a subliminal scent, you know, the person is not
Speaker 1: conscious of it, that they have a memory associated with
Speaker 1: that scent that is negative and for most people it's positive.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get a positive outcome, uh, with negative,
Speaker 1: But with stinky stuff, it's a little easier, right, because
Speaker 1: it's just unpleasant. Um. Now this also, I also think
Speaker 1: that this is a way of suggesting, uh that we
Speaker 1: should really work in improving air quality and uh the
Speaker 1: type of sense that we encounter in public spaces, because
Speaker 1: not only is it more pleasant, but it actually positively
Speaker 1: affects people's mood, which in turn positively affects people's decisions.
Speaker 1: And therefore, if you are in an environment that is
Speaker 1: less pleasant, it's unpleasant, then you could be affecting people's
Speaker 1: moods and affect people's decisions. Not to go so far
Speaker 1: as to say good smells and bad smells are either
Speaker 1: going to uh eliminate or encourage crime, but it certainly
Speaker 1: can influence people. Sure, I mean yeah, could could you
Speaker 1: make a city a nicer city to live in by
Speaker 1: making the inhabitants of the city nicer people by making
Speaker 1: them smell flowers? Even if you're not making them nicer people,
Speaker 1: you might be setting them up for success. That's the
Speaker 1: way I kind of think of it, because ultimately, again
Speaker 1: I don't think free will is completely taken out of
Speaker 1: this picture. Obviously, if someone is determined to choose a
Speaker 1: h a course of action that would have a negative
Speaker 1: impact on somebody else. Pumping fresh bait cookie smell to
Speaker 1: them is probably not going to change their mind. However,
Speaker 1: just as a general thing, it might be a very
Speaker 1: kind of hands off way of encouraging more p centrin quility. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean but this, this again starts to
Speaker 1: creep into a conversation that we're going to have later
Speaker 1: on about the various influences we can have that can
Speaker 1: kind of influence our behavior, perhaps even to the point
Speaker 1: where we are encouraged to take one course of action
Speaker 1: over any other course of action, and what are the
Speaker 1: ethical implications of that. That's a much bigger discussion that
Speaker 1: we're going to have pretty soon, So stay tuned because
Speaker 1: we've got a lot to say about that. But this
Speaker 1: has been really cool. It's been a fun topic to
Speaker 1: talk about. I think this was one that I had, well, Joey,
Speaker 1: you and I had both talked about. I don't know
Speaker 1: who specifically mentioned the smell. Somehow, somehow we brought up
Speaker 1: smells and I was like, could we make an episode
Speaker 1: out of that? And then the question became could we
Speaker 1: make a good episode? And I'm not sure I hope. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope this was worth it. Well. I gotta say
Speaker 1: I had a lot of fun looking into this and
Speaker 1: learned a lot. I mean, just the idea that something
Speaker 1: beneath the threshold of consciousness could have that big of
Speaker 1: an impact upon a mood, uh, you know, maybe not
Speaker 1: so big as to definitely determine your actions, but certainly
Speaker 1: to sway you. Uh. That to me was fascinating and
Speaker 1: honestly a little a little unnerving. Yeah, to think that
Speaker 1: you might not be as in control as you believe
Speaker 1: you are. Uh. And we're going to talk more about
Speaker 1: that too. So, guys, if you have suggestions for future topics,
Speaker 1: maybe you've got questions, comments, Maybe there's a childhood smell,
Speaker 1: something that just brings you back to a specific memory
Speaker 1: and you want to share that with us, we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Send us an email that addresses
Speaker 1: FW thinking at how Stuff Works dot com, or you
Speaker 1: can drop us a line on Twitter, Google Plus or Facebook.
Speaker 1: At Twitter and Google Plus, we are f W thinking.
Speaker 1: Just go to Facebook, type and FW thinking We're gonna
Speaker 1: pop right up. You can leave us a message and
Speaker 1: we will talk to you again really soon for more
Speaker 1: on this topic, in the future of technology. Visit forward
Speaker 1: thinking dot com problem brought to you by Toyota Let's
Speaker 1: Go Places,