Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind

Name: Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind
Brand: Harvard University Press

Harvard University Press

Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind\n\nProduct Overview\nA pioneering exploration of olfaction that upsets settled notions of how the\nbrain translates sensory information. Decades of cognition research have shown\nthat external stimuli \""spark\"" neural patterns in particular regions of the\nbrain. This has fostered a view of the brain as a space that we can map: here\nthe brain responds to faces, there it perceives a sensation in your left hand.\nBut it turns out that the sense of smell-only recently attracting broader\nattention in neuroscience-doesn't work this way. A. S. Barwich asks a\ndeceptively simple question: What does the nose tell the brain, and how does\nthe brain understand it? Barwich interviews experts in neuroscience,\npsychology, chemistry, and perfumery in an effort to understand the biological\nmechanics and myriad meanings of odors. She argues that it is time to stop\nrecycling ideas based on the paradigm of vision for the olfactory system.\nScents are ofte-