The importance of fear and disgust signals goes beyond warning others of immediate danger. Fear signals can arouse survival acquisition. Experiencing a fearful expression does not only open our eyes but also enhances our perception, increases eye movements, and allows us to breath in more through our our nose. These reflexive actions provides us with a survival advantage in potentially dangerous situations. Disgust signals, however signal to others to avoid aversive substances or dangerous chemicals.
In this study the researchers wanted to investigate whether or not chemosignals would activate similar processes in the sender and receiver. They hypothesized that individuals who inhaled fear chemosignals would then elicit a fear response while individuals who inhaled disgust chemosignals would show signs of disgust. To test the hypothesis researchers collected sweat from men who were either watching a fear video or a disgust video. The men were instructed to only use odorless products for at least 2 days prior to the experiment. Women were then exposed to the sweat while completing a visual search task and their facial expressions were recorded. The results of the study showed that women who were exposed to the fear-sweat demonstrated fearful facial expressions and those exposed to disgust-sweat displayed discuss facial expressions.
I find this to be a rather interesting article because the findings of the study suggest that people don't communicate solely through language and visual cues. Do you think that some people may be more sensitive to these chemosignals? Could this be why some people may be more empathetic to others emotions and feelings? Do you think that these chemosignals only exist for fear and disgust?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121105140407.htm
This is an incredibly interesting article. It is pretty cool to think of all the crazy stuff that our bodies do that we don't even realize on a day to day basis. Sensing fear by smell? Sounds like we are related to dogs! I think there should be more research done on this topic, especially research on other sensations that can come from chemosignals, like anger, happiness and maybe even humor.
ReplyDeleteI also feel that the sense of smell is a very underrated sense, especially because much of our experience during activities like eating tasty foods and even sex come from chemoreceptors picking up (mostly pleasant) sensations.