kampers.net

All of the odors we smell every day—like flowers, fresh coffee, or cigarette smoke—are actually made up of several hundred different chemical odors coming from the object. They all hit the nose at once. So we can assume that the brain recognizes a distinct combination of odorants and combines them into one unique, recognizable sensation of smell. Yet when we smell multiple things at the same time, say coffee and a danish, we recognize them individually, even though all the individual chemicals from each object are hitting the nose at the same time. What’s to say that combination of thousands of chemicals doesn’t actually smell like something else, say Tasty Wheat? How do I know I’m smelling two different things, and not just something new I haven’t smelled before that has that particular chemical signature?

I have a neuroscience final in five hours. #