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Slide Notes

Brea: Do you remember moments in which you walk into a friends house, and it smells like them? Or, can you recall a memory from just a small scent of a fragrance?
Camiella: Today we are going to tell you about the role of smell in scientific knowledge. Smell plays a crucial role in determining location, memory, and identification
Sabeena: Although smell is a path less traveled in science, we are here to prove that we rely on it more than we think.
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Sabrella: Scientific Knowledge and smell

Published on Apr 29, 2016

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

Can you smell science?

By:Brea, Camiellalouisa,Sabeena
Brea: Do you remember moments in which you walk into a friends house, and it smells like them? Or, can you recall a memory from just a small scent of a fragrance?
Camiella: Today we are going to tell you about the role of smell in scientific knowledge. Smell plays a crucial role in determining location, memory, and identification
Sabeena: Although smell is a path less traveled in science, we are here to prove that we rely on it more than we think.

The science of perfumery and your nose

*with a quote from PatricK Suskind*
“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it."
In a recent TED talk, Luca Turin discussed how chemically, we all smell the same thing, but that we all perceive it differently and how perfume scientists use that to create scents that the majority can find pleasant.

Smell and productivity levels

Smell can also affect productivity and increase alertness. For example, one study found that when lemon oil was diffused throughout a Japanese office building, productivity among data entry operators increased by 54%.
In order for an odor to elicit any sort of response in you, you have to first learn to associate it with some event. This explanation for how odors affect us is based on what is known as associative learning, the process by which one event or item comes to be linked to another because of an individuals past experiences. exposing workers to universally accepted fragrances such as lemon, lavender, jasmine, etc. can allow workers to increase their productivity levels whether working in a classroom, laboratory, office, etc.

Effect of smell on validity and other counters

Counterargument:
1) Smell affects our emotions, would that not affect the validity and objectivity of a science experiment.
2) some experiments can't use smell because the chemicals could be toxic such as sulphur and chlorine, what then?
3) Smell and our reaction to it changes y person and their backgrounds ( range of pleasantness etc). As a matter of fact According to Andreas Keller each human has a genetic variation that causes the way they smell to differ.
4) However, there are some downsides to any efforts at workplace aromatherapy. Some individuals consider themselves to be unusually sensitive to odors, and any introduction of aromas might meet resistance and may act as a hindrance to focus.

Autism sniff test disproves all & rebuttalss

Successfully disproved 86% of kids who were claimed autistic by doctors. It enhanced scientific knowledge and its validity so now as a way to test this perhaps scientist could use traditional science methods and the sniff test.

Implications

Smell is really understudied and under appreciated despite it's connections to all our other senses. The field of science is increasingly becoming aware of its importance.