A study involving six experiments and a total of 216 people finds that, similar to the binocular and binaural senses that constitute 3D sensation, differences in concentrations of odorants between nostrils consistently biased study participants into thinking that they were moving toward a high concentration of the odorants, despite being unable to report which nostril detected the stronger odor; the results suggest that human olfaction works in stereo mode, according to the authors.
Article #20-04642: "Humans navigate with stereo olfaction," by Yuli Wu, Kepu Chen, Yuting Ye, Tao Zhang, Wen Zhou.
MEDIA CONTACT: Wen Zhou, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, CHINA; e-mail: zhouw@psych.ac.cn
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Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences