Skip Navigation



Chemical Senses Advance Access published online on March 9, 2006
Chemical Senses, doi:10.1093/chemse/bjj046
This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
31/5/415    most recent
bjj046v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Chen, D.
Right arrow Articles by Lucas, N.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Chen, D.
Right arrow Articles by Lucas, N.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Accepted February 14, 2006

Article

Chemosignals of Fear Enhance Cognitive Performance in Humans

Denise Chen 1 *, Ameeta Katdare 1, and Nadia Lucas 1

1 Psychology Department MS-25, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX 77005, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Denise Chen, E-mail: xdchen{at}rice.edu


  Abstract

It is well documented across phyla that animals experiencing stress and fear produce chemical warning signals that can lead to behavioral, endocrinological, and immunological changes in the recipient animals of the same species. Humans distinguish between fear and other emotional chemosignals based on olfactory cues. Here, we study the effect of human fear chemosignals on the speed and accuracy of cognitive performance. In a double-blind experiment, female participants performed a word-association task while smelling one of the three types of olfactory stimuli: fear sweat, neutral sweat, and control odor carrier. We found that the participants exposed to the fear condition performed more accurately and yet with no sacrifice for speed on meaningful word conditions than those under either the neutral or the control condition. At the same time, they performed slower on tasks that contained ambiguous content. Possible factors that could introduce bias, such as individual differences due to anxiety, verbal skills, and perceived qualities of the smells, were ruled out. Our results demonstrate that human fear chemosignals enhance cognitive performances in the recipient. We suggest that this effect originates from learned associations, including greater cautiousness and concomitant changes in cognitive strategies.

Keywords: cautiousness; cognitive performance; fear chemosignals.
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J. Neurosci.Home page
W. Zhou and D. Chen
Encoding Human Sexual Chemosensory Cues in the Orbitofrontal and Fusiform Cortices
J. Neurosci., December 31, 2008; 28(53): 14416 - 14421.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Learn. Mem.Home page
T. W. Bredy and M. Barad
Social modulation of associative fear learning by pheromone communication
Learn. Mem., December 30, 2008; 16(1): 12 - 18.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.