22 Jun Nature: Sniffing Out Smell’s Effects on Human Behaviour

Scientists have historically deemed human olfaction an underdeveloped sense compared with smell in our fellow mammals — a primitive tool that fell by the wayside over the course of evolution. Most people generally pay it little heed, with scent coming to the fore only occasionally, such as when inside a bakery or public toilet.

But olfaction researchers now think that humans can extract rich information about other people from the smells they produce, including cues that might influence our behaviour and emotional state.

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