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Chemical Senses Advance Access published online on November 25, 2009
Chemical Senses, doi:10.1093/chemse/bjp083
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

An Initial Evaluation of the Functions of Human Olfaction

Richard J. Stevenson

Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia

Correspondence to be sent to: Richard J. Stevenson, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. e-mail: richard.stevenson{at}psy.mq.edu.au


  Abstract

Although referred to in passing in several places, there have been few attempts to specify the functions of the human olfactory system. This article presents an initial effort at identifying and categorizing these functions, using 3 sources of information as a guide: 1) losses experienced by anosmic participants; 2) olfactory function in other mammals; and 3) capacity, namely, whether the human olfactory system can support the suggested function and whether there is evidence that it does. Three major classes of function were identified, relating to Ingestion (Detection/identification prior to ingestion; Detection of expectancy violations; Appetite regulation; Breast orientation and feeding), Avoiding environmental hazards (Fear related; Disgust related), and Social communication (Reproductive [inbreeding avoidance, fitness detection in prospective mates]; Emotional contagion [fear contagion, stress buffering]). These suggested functions were then examined with respect to 1) issues of ecological validity in human olfactory research; 2) their impact on olfactory loss; and 3) their general and specific implications for the study of human olfaction.

Key words: function, human, olfaction

Accepted 2 November 2009


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