The role of olfaction in kin recognition and parental investment is documented in many mammalian/vertebrate species. Research on humans, however, has only focused on whether parents are able to recognize their children by smell, not whether humans use these cues for investment decisions. Here we show that fathers exhibit more affection and attachment and fewer ignoring behaviors toward children whose smell they can identify than toward those whose smell they cannot recognize. Thus, olfaction might serve as a means for (...) males to determine their genetic relatedness to purported offspring. We also demonstrate that mothers’ olfactory recognition and hedonistic ratings are linked with the use of physical punishment. Mothers report using more punishment with children whose odor they cannot recognize and less with children whose odor they rated as more pleasant. These results provide the first preliminary evidence in humans that olfactory cues may guide parents in the allocation of care. (shrink)

Several studies have now documented menstrual synchrony in human females. There is a broad consensus that the phenomenon mainly occurs in women who spend a significant amount of time together, such as close friends and coworkers, and that social contact rather than a similar environment plays an important role in mediating the effect. However, the mechanisms involved and the adaptive function of menstrual synchrony are not understood. There is some evidence that olfactory cues between females might underlie the (...) effect. More research is needed before the precise mechanisms that regulate menstrual synchrony are elucidated. (shrink)

There is increasing evidence for directional guidance of growing axons by molecular gradients in target tissues. Aside from biochemical studies on gradients and their role, the capability of axons to approach their target position from different aspects of a two-dimensional field is itself an indication for guidance by gradients. According to this criterion, such guidance is expected to be involved not only in map-formation in the visual system but also in targeting of receptor cell axons in the olfactory bulb. (...) In this paper, physico-chemical concepts of visual mapping are adapted to olfactory targeting. In both cases there must be sophisticated processing of graded cues in the growing tip of the axon for growth cone navigation. In visual map formation, a target position is determined by influences of cues depending on the position of axonal origin; in olfactory targeting, however, these influences are expected to be based on properties of the receptor-cell-specific molecules (possibly including the receptor molecule itself), as well as by gene regulation affecting the levels of expression. According to this concept, the main role of molecules expressed in a receptor-cell-type specific manner is not matching specific counterparts on the target tissue, but instead quantitative modulation of growth cone steering for sensing the direction towards the target position. (shrink)

Background: Olfactory cues directly link the environment to gene expression. Two types of olfactory cues, food odors and social odors, alter genetically predisposed hormone-mediated activity in the mammalian brain. Methods: The honeybee is a model organism for understanding the epigenetic link from food odors and social odors to neural networks of the mammalian brain, which ultimately determine human behavior. Results: Pertinent aspects that extend the honeybee model to human behavior include bottom-up followed by top-down gene, cell, (...) tissue, organ, organ-system, and organism reciprocity; neurophysiological effects of food odors and of sexually dimorphic, species-specific social odors; a model of motor function required for social selection that precedes sexual selection; and hormonal effects that link current neuroscience to social science affects on the development of animal behavior. Conclusion: As the psychological influence of food odors and social orders is examined in detail, the socioaffective nature of olfactory cues on the biologically based development of sexual preferences across all species that sexually reproduce becomes clearer Keywords: behavior; development; evolution; odors; food; social; sexual; epigenetic; olfaction; pheromones; hormones; environment; animal; affect; effect; neuroscience (Published: 15 March 2012) Citation: Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology 2012, 2 : 17338 - DOI: 10.3402/snp.v2i0.17338. (shrink)

Scientists have shown that many non‐human animals such as ants, dogs, or rats are very good at using smells to find their way through their environments. But are humans also capable of navigating through their environment based on olfactory cues? There is not much research on this topic, a gap that the present research seeks to bridge. We here provide one of the first empirical studies investigating the possibility of using olfactory cues as landmarks in human (...) wayfinding. Forty subjects participated in a piloting study to determine the olfactory material for the main experiment. Then, 24 subjects completed a wayfinding experiment with 12 odors as orientation cues. Our results are astonishing: Participants were rather good at what we call “odor‐based wayfinding.” This indicates that the ability of humans to use olfactory cues for navigation is often underestimated. We discuss two different cognitive explanations and rule out the idea that our results are just an instance of sequential learning. Rather, we argue that humans can enrich their cognitive map of the environment with olfactory landmarks and may use them for wayfinding. (shrink)

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC)‐associated mate choice is thought to give offspring a fitness advantage through disease resistance. Primates offer a unique opportunity to understand MHC‐associated mate choice within our own zoological order, while their social diversity provides an exceptional setting to examine the genetic determinants and consequences of mate choice in animal societies. Although mate choice is constrained by social context, increasing evidence shows that MHC‐dependent mate choice occurs across the order in a variety of socio‐sexual systems and favours mates (...) with dissimilar, diverse or specific genotypes non‐exclusively. Recent research has also identified phenotypic indicators of MHC quality. Moreover, novel findings rehabilitate the importance of olfactory cues in signalling MHC genes and influencing primate mating decisions. These findings underline the importance to females of selecting a sexual partner of high genetic quality, as well as the generality of the role of MHC genes in sexual selection. (shrink)

The ability to detect and respond to chemosensory threat cues in the environment plays a vital role in survival across species. However, little is known about which chemical compounds can act as olfactory threat signals in humans. We hypothesized that brief exposure to putrescine, a chemical compound produced by the breakdown of fatty acids in the decaying tissue of dead bodies, can function as a chemosensory warning signal, activating threat management responses (e.g., heightened alertness, fight-or-flight responses). This hypothesis (...) was tested by gaging people’s responses to conscious and non-conscious exposure to putrescine. In Experiment 1, putrescine increased vigilance, as measured by a reaction time task. In Experiments 2 and 3, brief exposure to putrescine (vs. ammonia and a scentless control condition) prompted participants to walk away faster from the exposure site. Experiment 3 also showed that putrescine elicited implicit cognitions related to escape and threat. Experiment 4 found that exposure to putrescine, presented here below the threshold of conscious awareness, increased hostility toward an out-group member. Together, the results are the first to indicate that humans can process putrescine as a warning signal that mobilizes protective responses to deal with relevant threats. The implications of these results are briefly discussed. (shrink)

Information-seeking behaviour of sniffer dogs during match-to-sample training in the scent lineup Qualitative and quantitative changes in dogs' information-seeking behaviours during the subsequent phases of operant conditioning training using a scent lineup, were investigated. Particular interest was paid to behaviours which may have an impact on errors committed by dogs at work in a scent lineup and thus on the reliability of the canine identification of humans on the base of scent. Significant individual differences were found in dogs' performance in (...) operant conditioning during match-to-sample trials. The style and time of sniffing the pattern scent sample as well as the searching time and number of stations sniffed in the lineup were found to influence the percentage of errors made by dogs. The effects of the dogs' routine e.g. omitting stations, using other cues than olfactory ones and effects of the non-verbal communications between handler and dog have been discussed. (shrink)

Animals use their chemosensory systems to detect and discriminate among chemical cues in the environment. Remarkable progress has recently been made in our knowledge of the molecular and cellular basis of chemosensory perception in insects, based largely on studies in Drosophila. This progress has been possible due to the identification of gene families for olfactory and gustatory receptors, the use of electro‐physiological recording techniques on sensory neurons, the multitude of genetic manipulations that are available in this species, and (...) insights from several insect model systems. Recent studies show that the superfamily of chemoreceptor proteins represent the essential elements in chemosensory coding, endowing chemosensory neurons with their abilities to respond to specific sets of odorants, tastants or pheromones. Investigating how insects detect chemicals in their environment can show us how receptor protein structures relate to ligand binding, how nervous systems process complex information, and how chemosensory systems and genes evolve. BioEssays 28:23–34, 2006. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The assessment of hormones in saliva has gained wide acceptance in clinical endocrinology. To date, there is no hypothesis as to why some hormones can be found in saliva, while others cannot, and whether there is a physiological consequence of this fact. A number of carefully performed studies give examples of important physiological hormonal activity in saliva. Steroids, such as androgens, act as pheromones in olfactory communication of various mammalian species, such as facilitating mating behavior in swine or serving (...) as odor cues for rodent nestlings. Salivary peptide hormones, such as epidermal growth factor (EGF) and transforming growth factor‐α (TGF‐α), and amines such as melatonin, are involved in the regulation of inflammatory processes and in the promotion of cell proliferation, and contribute to a rapid wound healing in the oropharyngeal epithelia. Current data provide evidence of the involvement of salivary cytokines, such as interleukin‐8 and leptin, in tumorgenesis in the oral cavity and the salivary glands. The tumor tissues express and release significantly more of these cytokines than healthy glands. Consequently, the assessment of salivary hormone profiles may provide promising targets for diagnostic tumor markers. (shrink)

The connectivity patterns of many neural circuits are highly ordered and often impressively complex. The intricate order and complexity of neuronal wiring remain not only a challenge for questions related to circuit functions but also for our understanding of how they develop with such an apparent precision. The chemotropic guidance of the growing axon by target‐derived cues represents a central paradigm for how neurons get connected with the correct target cells. However, many studies reveal a remarkable variety of important (...) target‐independent wiring mechanisms. These mechanisms include axonal sorting, axonal tiling, growth cone polarization, as well as cell‐intrinsic mechanisms underlying growth cone sprouting, and neurite branching. Our review focuses on target independent wiring mechanisms and in particular on recent progress emerging from studies on three different sensory systems: olfactory, visual, and somatosensory. We discuss molecular mechanisms that operate during axon‐axon interactions or constitute axon‐intrinsic functions and outline how they complement the well‐known target‐dependent wiring mechanisms. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

The first two parts of the book are lectures given by Dr. Cuénot at the first annual conference in October 1966 of the Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Association of Great Britain and Ireland. Then follows a comment made by Professor Garaudy at the conference. The text concludes with an original essay by Dr. Cuénot which examines Teilhard's influence on contemporary thinkers.

Se apuntan algunas reflexiones relevantes sobre el ethos universitario en el contexto del exilio republicano español de 1939. En concreto, de autores como Fernando de los Ríos, Joaquín Xirau y José Gaos, exponentes todo ellos de un saber desarraigado en busca de nuevos resortes de poder. Se tiene además en cuenta el caso de María Zambrano, cuyo aparente desinterés por la cuestión universitaria es indicio de un saber coherente con su exilio e irreductible a la disciplina académica, de un saber (...) que ha renunciado al poder y exige un nuevo ethos. (shrink)

The particle internal clock conjectured by de Broglie in 1924 was investigated in a channeling experiment using a beam of ∼80 MeV electrons aligned along the 〈110〉 direction of a 1 μm thick silicon crystal. Some of the electrons undergo a rosette motion, in which they interact with a single atomic row. When the electron energy is finely varied, the rate of electron transmission at 0° shows a 8% dip within 0.5% of the resonance energy, 80.874 MeV, for which the (...) frequency of atomic collisions matches the electron’s internal clock frequency. A model is presented to show the compatibility of our data with the de Broglie hypothesis. (shrink)

This striking Lacanian contribution to discourse analysis is also a critique of contemporary psychological abstraction, as well as a reassessment of the radical opposition between psychology and psychoanalysis. This original introduction to Lacan's work bridges the gap between discourseanalytical debates in social psychology and the social-theoretical extensions of discourse theory. David Pavón Cuéllar provides a precise definition and a detailed explanation of key Lacanian concepts, and illustrates how they may be put to work on a concrete discourse, in this case (...) a fragment of an interview obtained by the author from the Mexican underground Popular Revolutionary Forces (EPR). Throughout the book, Lacanian concepts are compared to their counterparts in psychology. Such a comparison reveals insuperable incompatibilities between the two series of concepts. The author shows that Lacan's psychoanalytical terminology can neither be translated nor assimilated to the terms of current psychology. Among the notions in actual or potential competition with Lacanian concepts, the book deals with those proposed by semiology, Marxism, phenomenology, constructionism, deconstruction, and hermeneutics. Taking a stand on those theoretical positions, each chapter includes detailed discussion of the contribution of classical approaches to language; including Barthes, Bakhtin, Althusser, Politzer, Wittgenstein, Berger and Luckmann, Derrida, and Ricoeur. There is sustained reference in the body of the text to the arguments of Lacan and Lacanians, of Miller, Milner, Soler, and Zizek. At the same time, in the extensive notes accompanying the text, there is a systematic reappraisal and reinterpretation of debates and pieces of research work in social psychology, especially in a discursive and critical domain that has incorporated elements of psychoanalytic theory. (shrink)

The objective was to analyze the influence of the social context on bullying. A mixed investigation was proposed: the social context was analyzed, were applied questionnaires and interviews; were analyzed descriptively, normality tests and non-parametric tests; different manifestations of bullying are presented; their frequency varies between both high schools.

Estamos a un año del cincuentenario de la aparición formal de la bioética en el escenario científico global. El afortunado neologismo usado por Potter en 1970 para vincular las ciencias experimentales con las ciencias humanísticas, creando un enfoque interdisciplinar indispensable -esencia de la bioética-, el cual pretende recuperar el liderazgo de la filosofía -particularmente de la ética- a fin de orientar apropiadamente los desarrollos de las ciencias prácticas en boga, como la biología, la ecología, la química, la cibernética, las nuevas (...) biotecnologías, la biomedicina, siempre con respeto de la dignidad del ser humano y su entorno. Es necesario estar alerta a ciertas tendencias actuales guiadas principalmente por intereses económicos y posverdad, corrientes transhumanistas que parecieran dar un nuevo giro copernicano en la reflexión científico-filosófica, en donde la esencia del ser humano pareciera esfumarse y quedar al libre arbitrio de las ciencias cibernéticas. ¿Qué hacer entonces? El reto que se vislumbra en el horizonte es volver a descubrir una racionalidad que la sustente, o como Potter decía en 1970: "El conocimiento de cómo utilizar el conocimiento" ¿Qué tan cerca está esta nueva ciencia de alcanzar las metas que su fundador Van Rensselaer Potter propuso para unir las ciencias experimentales con las ciencias humanísticas? ¿La biología con la filosofía, y a su vez destacar la urdimbre jurídica que de manera natural brota ante problemáticas y retos tan relevantes en el ámbito clínico, como son los que aborda y atiende la bioética como ciencia? En este contexto la bioética surge como una disciplina con un especial interés por discernir en esta multitud de nuevas posibilidades lo que es ético de lo que no lo es, lo que humaniza de lo que degrada, lo correcto de lo incorrecto, lo que concuerda con el respeto a la dignidad de las personas o no. De ahí el interés en aportar un conjunto de escritos científicos acerca de sus fundamentos y principales aplicaciones, tanto para personal de salud, alumnos de pregrado y posgrado, docentes, como a quienes pertenecen a comités hospitalarios: abogados, filósofos, representantes religiosos, así como profesionales de otros ámbitos, incluidas la investigación y la práctica clínica, que les permita tomar las decisiones correctas, dentro del marco del derecho sanitario vigente de nuestro país y conforme a los tratados internacionales de los que México es parte. El libro tiene como objetivo presentar a los estudiantes, docentes, investigadores y profesionales de distintas carreras, interesados en este ámbito, los fundamentos antropológicos y humanísticos de la novedosa y polémica ciencia de la bioética, sus campos de aplicación, los dilemas que suelen presentarse, así como algunas propuestas de solución de casos clínicos concretos por un grupo interdisciplinar de académicos de prestigiadas instituciones educativas de nuestro país. (shrink)

The philosophy of perception has been mostly focused on vision, to the detriment of other modalities like audition or olfaction. In this paper I focus on olfaction and olfactory experience, and raise the following questions: is olfaction a perceptual-representational modality? If so, what does it represent? My goal in the paper is, firstly, to provide an affirmative answer to the first question, and secondly, to argue that olfaction represents odors in the form of olfactory objects, to which (...) class='Hi'>olfactory qualities are attributed. In order to do this I develop an empirically adequate notion of olfactory object that is sensitive to the peculiarities of olfaction, and defend it against various objections. (shrink)

Hookups are uncommitted sexual encounters that range from kissing to intercourse and occur between individuals in whom there is no current dating relationship and no expressed or acknowledged expectations of a relationship following the hookup. Research over the last decade has begun to focus on hooking up among adolescents and young adults with significant research demonstrating how alcohol is often involved in hooking up. Given alcohol’s involvement with hooking up behavior, the array of health consequences associated with this relationship, as (...) well as its increasing prevalence from adolescence to young adulthood, it is important to determine the predictors and consequences associated with alcohol-related hooking up. The current review extends prior reviews by adding more recent research, including both qualitative and experimental studies (i.e. expanding to review more diverse methods), research that focuses on the use of technology in alcohol-related hookups (i.e. emerging issues), further develops prevention and intervention potentials and directions, and also offers a broader discussion of hooking up outside of college student populations (i.e., expanding generalization). This article will review the operationalization and ambiguity of the phrase hooking up, the relationship between hooking up and alcohol use at both the global and event levels, predictors of alcohol-related hooking up, and both positive and negative consequences, including sexual victimization, associated with alcohol-related hookups. Throughout, commentary is provided on the methodological issues present in the field, as well as limitations of the existing research. Future directions for research that could significantly advance our understanding of hookups and alcohol use are provided. (shrink)

Much of the philosophical work on perception has focused on vision. Recently, however, philosophers have begun to correct this ‘tunnel vision’ by considering other modalities. Nevertheless, relatively little has been written about the chemical senses—olfaction and gustation. The focus of this paper is olfaction. In light of new physiological and psychophysical research on olfaction, I consider whether olfactory experience is object-based. In particular, I explore the claim that “odor objects” constitute sensory individuals. It isn’t obvious—at least at the outset—whether (...) they meet the widely accepted principles of object individuation and recognition at work in the visual and auditory cases. Among the general issues I consider, then, is whether these traditional principles form necessary, or simply sufficient, conditions on object perception. As we see, at the very least, considering the object-recognition model of olfaction challenges us to look more closely at well-entrenched models of object perception. But the payoff of doing so is high. We not only learn something about a modality that philosophers have historically neglected; by asking new questions and challenging old assumptions, we also further our understanding of perception in general. (shrink)

Olfactory rivalry can occur when a binary mixture is sniffed repeatedly, with one percept dominating then the other. Experiment 1 demonstrated olfactory rivalry using several new techniques. Experiments 2 and 3 examined whether participants can notice rivalry. Participants received trials composed of odor pairs: either a mixture followed by the same mixture; or a pure odor followed by the same pure odor. On some trials participants judged whether the two stimuli were the same or different, to see if (...) they could detect rivalry. On other trials participants judged the quality of each odor, allowing us to determine whether rivalry occurred. We found evidence for rivalry when we compared reports of odor quality for one stimulus and then the other, but no evidence that participants could detect this change. These findings are consistent with the idea that people can experience olfactory illusions, but may not know they have occurred. (shrink)

We investigate the processes underlying the feeling of control over one’s actions . Sense of agency may depend on internal motoric signals, and general inferences about external events. We used priming to modulate the sense of agency for voluntary and involuntary movements, by modifying the content of conscious thought prior to moving. Trials began with the presentation of one of two supraliminal primes, which corresponded to the effect of a voluntary action participants subsequently made. The perceived interval between movement and (...) effect was used as an implicit measure of sense of agency. Primes modulated perceived intervals for both voluntary and involuntary movements, but the modulation was greatest for involuntary movements. A second experiment showed that this modulation depended on prime–movement contiguity. We propose that sense of agency is based on a combination of internal motoric signals and external sensory evidence about the source of actions and effects. (shrink)

Mental Imagery, whereby we experience aspect of a perceptual scene or perceptual object in the absence of direct sensory stimulation is ubiquitous. Often the existence of mental imagery is demonstrated by asking one’s reader to volitionally generate a visual object, such as closing ones eyes and imagining an apple. However, mental imagery also arises in auditory, tactile, interoceptive, and olfactory cases. A number of influential philosophical theories have attempted to explain mental imagery in terms of belief-based forms of representation (...) using the Dependence Thesis, dependence upon means of access, such as enactivism, or in terms of the similarity of content with perceptual processing. The focus of this paper concerns the later approach and in particular assessing if Nanay’s promissory note that his theory is applicable to modalities other than vision, such as smell, seems likely to be of theoretical tender. The thesis argued for in this paper is that olfactory imagery exists and is best accounted for by considering it as a type of perceptual processing with a unique representational format relative to the olfactory perceptual modality. The paper concludes by summarizing the applicability of Nanay’s theory of mental imagery for olfaction and suggests some further issues that arise when transitioning to multi-modal mental imagery. (shrink)

This chapter argues that olfactory experiences represent either everyday objects or ad hoc olfactory objects as having primitive olfactory properties, which happen to be uninstantiated. On this picture, olfactory experiences reliably misrepresent: they falsely represent everyday objects or ad hoc objects as having properties they do not have, and they misrepresent in the same way on multiple occasions. One might worry that this view is incompatible with the plausible claim that olfactory experiences at least sometimes (...) justify true beliefs about the world. This chapter argues that there is no such incompatibility. Since olfactory experiences reliably misrepresent, they can lead to true and justified beliefs about putatively smelly objects. (shrink)

It has been suggested that there maybe no olfactory illusions. This manuscript examines this claim and argues that it arises because olfactory illusions are not typically accompanied by an awareness of their illusory nature. To demonstrate that olfactory illusions do occur, the relevant empirical literature is reviewed, by examining instances of where the same stimulus results in different percepts, and of where different stimuli result in the same percept. The final part of the manuscript evaluates the evidence (...) favoring the existence of olfactory illusions, and then examines why they may not typically be accompanied by awareness. Three contributory mechanisms are discussed, relating to difficulty of verification and paucity of olfactory knowledge, the role of change blindness, and restricted access consciousness in this sense. (shrink)

Any living organism interacts with and responds specifically to environmental molecules by expressing specific olfactory receptors. In this paper, this specificity will be first examined in causal terms with particular emphasis on the mechanisms controlling olfactory gene expression, cell-to-cell interactions and odor-decoding processes. However, this type of explanation does not entirely justify the role olfactory receptors have played during evolution, since they are also expressed ectopically in different organs and/or tissues. Homologous olfactory genes have in fact (...) been found in such diverse cells and/or organs as spermatozoa, testis and kidney where they are assumed to act as chemotactic sensors or renin modulators. To justify their functional diversity, homologous olfactory receptors are assumed to share the same basic role: that of conferring a self-identity to cells or tissues under varying environmental conditions. By adopting this standpoint, the functional attribution as olfactory or chemotactic sensors to these receptors should not be seen either as a cause conditioning receptor gene expression, or as a final effect resulting from genetically predetermined programs, but as a direct consequence of the environmental conditions olfactory receptor genes have explored during evolution. The association of odorant patterns with specific environmental or contextual situations makes their relationship semiotically triadic, due to the emergence of an interpretant capable of perceiving odorants as meaningful signs out of a noisy background. This perspective highlights the importance of odorant-receptor relationships as respect to the properties of the interacting partners. It is our contention that only when taken together can these different explanatory strategies provide a realistic account of how olfactory receptor genes have been structurally and functionally modified during evolution. (shrink)

Much of the philosophical work on perception has focused on vision, with very little discussion of the chemical senses—olfaction and gustation. In this paper, I consider the challenge that olfactory experience presents to upholding a representational view of the sense modalities. Given the phenomenology of olfactory experience, it is difficult to see what a representational view of it would be like. Olfaction, then, presents an important challenge for representational theories to overcome. In this paper, I take on this (...) challenge and argue for a representational account of olfactory experience that honors its phenomenology. (shrink)

The philosophy of perception has been dominated by vision, with very little discussion of the chemical senses – olfaction and gustation. In this second entry of a pair on olfactory experience, I consider what olfaction has to tell us about two issues: the nature of perceptual objects and the nature of perceptual properties and, in particular, the secondary qualities. Given the scant work on olfaction in the philosophical literature, my discussion not only surveys what philosophers have said about olfaction (...) so far, but considers the most plausible views and/or most pressing questions in each area of inquiry. (shrink)