Role of Olfaction in Daily Life - Essay Example

The olfactory receptors help in identifying food, mating partners, danger, enemies etc. It is physically closest to the “limbic system, which includes hippocampus and amygdale, which are responsible for emotions and memory” (Herz & Engen, pp. 300-313, 1996). Moreover, it is the slowest of all the senses because the brain takes longer to perceive the olfactory stimuli but persist it for a longer time. In humans, about “forty million olfactory receptors” (Sarafoleanu et al., pp. 196-98, 2009) can react due to a chemical molecule’s size, shape, or electrical charge.

In addition, it is an observation that humans are the most active species to produce the highest quantity of odor when it comes to comparison with other living beings. The role of olfaction in human life is minor and supplanted by hearing or touch in women and by vision or fantasy in men. One of the major reasons is that as there is an increment in volume and size of the human brain, which results in the diminishing of odor-related organs of the human body, subsequently causing prominence of vision and hearing.

Research (Sarafoleanu et al., pp. 196-98, 2009) shows, “humans and other primates are microsmatic i.e. . Savic et al (pp. 661-68, 2001) proved, “when women smell androgen-like substances they tend to have a higher activity in the preoptic and ventromedial hypothalamic nuclei.” The reactions caused by this activity could have sexual components, which can reveal the possibility of vomeronasal organs in the adult life. In human life, olfaction also adds emotional attributes in certain situations and objects.

It does not play a vital role in identifying and differentiating different objects present in the environment because humans use the sense of sight more for exploring the surroundings and leave smell for other purposes. For instance, the smell of a pizza stimulates our appetite but it is not important that we distinguish it from the other foods through the smell because the sight is sufficient to differentiate it. However, the emotion to visual sensations, quality, and consistency are determined by the olfactory senses especially in the case of food items where aroma and different flavors are determined (Dhar & Simonson, pp.

434-40, 1992). There is a very strong link of smell to taste and appetite as well. It has been an observation that the disruption of a pleasant sensory exposure causes depression and as a result, people may refuse to go out for dinner or associate with others. Scientists have pointed out that the role of olfaction in taste as very powerful and several studies (Sarafoleanu et al., pp. 196-98, 2009) have examined “brain responses to retro nasal olfactory stimulation.” For instance, “pinching the nose while eating or drinking blocks the airflow from the mouth through the olfactory system, which stops the flavor perception.

However, on