In the heavily forested Malay Peninsula survive a kin of hunter - accumulator who have a " super power " that ’s clueing scientist in as to how one ’s signified of scent can vary .
Turns out , smell can beexpressed in language , so long as you address the correct words to show it . A raw sketch , write inCell Biology , suggests that the ability to name smells is a product of culture too , rather than just biological science .
The study compared the smell science of the Semaq Beri , a hunting watch - gatherer group , and the horticulturalist grouping Semelai .
Researchers enquire 20 Semaq Beri and 21 Semali to name colors and to identify 16 unlike smells . Like English speakers , the Semalai used real words for colors ( pink or red ) and mostly source - base words for odors ( ie . it smells like banana tree ) .
investigator compared responses from an earliest study of theJahai , another huntsman - accumulator radical in the Malay Peninsula , and the responses from the Semaq Beri . Both hold out in a interchangeable environment , speak closely related spoken speech communication , and do n’t have a written linguistic communication .
An earlier subject field showed that for the Jahai people , odors are just as well-heeled to name as colors , whereas English speakers took five sentence longer to describe an odor than a color . Most English speakers grapple to describe olfactory perception and do so in terms of their sources , whereas colour have their own word . For example , you might say the air smells freshlikerain , but you say the skyisblue . This suggests olfactory sensation is related to life style practices , not just anatomy alone .
This expectant sense of sense of smell is establish in hunter - accumulator because it is all important for survival . For those of us living in an industrial society , however , the study suggests our sense of smell has been downgraded in an adaptation to an environment where we prioritize other senses .
The barrier to naming odors is wired into our brains and could be a Western experience , say author Nicole Kruspe , a linguist at Lund University in Sweden , and Asifa Majid of Radboud University in the Netherlands .
The study does not rule out factors like surroundings and biota . Instead , it suggests that culture helps facilitate superior sense . When foraging in a dense rain forest , communicating fragrance – like that of Panthera tigris urine – could be decisive to selection .
However , it ’s probable identify scents unfold beyond survival as well . The Semaq Beri fake certain core over different fire and believe some smells have healing properties while others cause illness .
