Myth ‘debunked’: The blind have more acute sense of smell
April 27th, 2010 - 3:14 pm ICT by ANIWashington, Apr 27 (ANI): An ongoing study has debunked the myth that the blind have a more acute sense of smell than the sighted.
According to the study by Mathilde Beaulieu-Lefebvre, a graduate student from the Université de Montréal Department of Psychology, vision loss simply makes blind people pay more attention to how they perceive smells.
“If you enter a room in which coffee is brewing, you will quickly look for the coffee machine. The blind person entering the same room will only have the smell of coffee as information,” says Beaulieu-Lefebvre. “That smell will therefore become very important for their spatial representation.”
The three-step study tested 25 subjects, 11 of whom were blind from birth. Participants answered a questionnaire and were subjected to two experiments: one where they had to differentiate 16 different perfumes using an olfactometer, another where they lay in a tomodensitometer to identify three smells: a rose, vanilla and butanol (a sweet alcohol).
“There is an urban legend that blind people have better smell than the sighted. We are proving this to be false,” says Maurice Ptito, a professor at the Université de Montréal School of Optometry and Beaulieu-Lefebvre’s thesis director. “However, the blind do set themselves apart when it comes to cognitive efforts.”
Using functional imagery, the team determined that the blind use their secondary olfactory cortex more than the sighted when they smell. They also use the occipital cortex, which is normally used for vision. “That’s interesting because it means the blind are recuperating that part of their brain,” says Dr. Ptito. “We’re not speaking of recycling per se, yet that part of the brain is reorganized and used otherwise.”
This research could lead to concrete applications in the re-adaptation of the blind. “For instance, smells are very peculiar in shopping centers,” says Beaulieu-Lefebvre. “A hair salon, a pharmacy and a clothing store each have their own distinctive scent. We could easily foresee developing re-adaptation programs for getting around in such places.” (ANI)
- Do the blind have more acute sense of smell? - Apr 27, 2010
- How blind people can better process sound - Mar 17, 2011
- Blind use visual brain parts to refine sensation of sound and touch - Oct 07, 2010
- 133 million have no access to optometrist - Mar 22, 2012
- A thicker brain helps fend off pain - Feb 25, 2010
- Scientists image tiny light-sensing cells in eye - Jun 09, 2011
- Practice improves sense of touch in blind - May 12, 2011
- People who are blind perceive touch faster than those with normal vision - Oct 27, 2010
- Why the blind have a superior sense of touch - Feb 23, 2011
- Bionic eye to help the blind 'see' - Nov 27, 2010
- Now, cheap, efficient method to convert algae into renewable fuel - Mar 06, 2011
- Autistic brains 'focus more on visual skills' - Apr 05, 2011
- New research may expand drug arsenal used to fight HIV - Mar 09, 2010
- Parental monitoring may protect 'bad' boys from heavy drug use - Aug 18, 2010
- Now, a new eye jab that could cure blindness! - Apr 17, 2011
Tags: acute sense, beaulieu, blind person, coffee machine, concrete applications, department of psychology, graduate student, hair salon, mathilde, occipital cortex, olfactometer, olfactory cortex, school of optometry, sense of smell, shopping centers, smell of coffee, spatial representation, thesis director, urban legend, vision loss