Something You Should Know - What Makes You an Introvert or Extrovert? & Why Things Smell

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

When you are focused on a task, interruptions can be annoying and maddening. Yet, there may be a positive side to interruptions that balance out the negative. This episode begins with some surprising research the suggests there is a silver lining to being interrupted. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210803175253.htm What determines whether you are an introvert or extrovert? Is one better than the other? Can you change which one you are? Are all introverts shy? These are just a few of the questions I tackle in my conversation with Holley Gerth. Holly hosts the podcast More Than Small Talk (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/more-than-small-talk-with-suzanne-holley-jennifer-klrc/id1447539391) and she is also author of the book The Powerful Purpose of Introverts (https://amzn.to/2XEHrJl). Whether you consider yourself an introvert, extrovert, or somewhere in the middle, you should hear what she has to say. Holly’s website is www.holleygerth.com Have you noticed how certain smells and odors can instantly transport you back to a time or place in your past? Why do you like some smells but hate others? Is there any smell that people universally love or hate? Your sense of smell is unlike any other sense you have. And here to help you understand how it works is Ann-Sophie Barwich. She is a cognitive scientist, an empirical philosopher as well as an assistant professor at Indiana University Bloomington. She is also author of the book. Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind (https://amzn.to/2W52jsJ) Do you know what MAYDAY or SOS really mean? Of course, they are universally known distress signals but is SOS an acronym for something? What does MAYDAY refer to? Unless you know the answer, you will never guess. Listen as I explain the surprising story. https://grammarist.com/usage/sos-and-mayday/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, interruptions can kill your productivity, yet they still may be good for you. Then we'll clear up the confusion about introverts and extroverts, like what determines which one you are. We are actually wired as introverts and extroverts. It appears from birth. And then, of course, things like environment shape us. But it does appear that there's some very biological basis for being an introvert or extrovert. Also, what does SOS and Mayday actually mean? Plus, the fascinating way your brain processes odors. And is there a smell that everyone hates?

You would actually assume that there must be something that everybody hates. Turns out there's a molecule called cadaverine, which smells like cadavers. It's deeply unpleasant. But if you dilute it down enough in water, it's got a sweetish scent. And some people like it. All this today on Something You Should Know. This is an ad for BetterHelp. Welcome to the world. Please read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you, and have a nice life.

Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today something you should know with mike carothers hi welcome to something you should know if you work in an office especially an open office where you can't close the door for privacy, you know all about interruptions. It's long been assumed that interruptions can be real productivity killers. However, a new study finds that these interruptions can actually be beneficial and counterbalance that loss of productivity they create. According to the study, which predominantly took

place at the University of Cincinnati and will soon appear in the print edition of the Journal of Applied Psychology, while there are certainly downsides to interruptions at work, like raising levels of stress, lowering people's energy, that loss of productivity I mentioned, there's also an upside. Employees felt more like they belonged, and that eventually led to higher job satisfaction. Productivity aside, humans are social beings who have an inherent need for interacting with others, according to the study's lead author, and interruptions can be that social interaction we crave and may be quite satisfying. And that is something you should know. When someone says they're an introvert, I sometimes sense that other people feel sorry for them,

as if, oh, isn't that a shame? That being an introvert is some sort of disability. If only you could come out of your shell and join the rest of us. But you seldom, if ever, hear anyone talk about the problems of being an extrovert. Are there any? Is being an extrovert a preferred way to be? Do extroverts have an advantage over introverts or are they just different? I think there's a lot of confusion about what an introvert is and what an extrovert is and what it all means. Here with some really good insight into this is Holly Gerth. Holly is

a podcaster and a life coach and author of several books, including The Powerful Purpose of Introverts. Hey, Holly, welcome. Thanks for having me. So let's start with an explanation of what an introvert is, because I think there's a lot of confusion about that. I think there are some people who believe that an introvert is someone who is shy or that introvert is a temperament or an insecurity. So what is an introvert? So an introvert is someone whose brain and nervous system are wired in a way that means

they prefer less external stimulation. So things coming at them from the outside world like noise, light, engagement with people is part of that. But the myth is that being an introvert is about something like how much you like small talk or whether or not you want to go to a party. And that is actually not true. Introverts are just as social as extroverts. We are just wired in some unique ways that make us introverts. And it's different from extroverts. Is it really the wiring or is it conditioning or is it you're born that way because your parents are that way? What is it really that causes you to desire your stimulation differently? So we are actually wired as introverts and extroverts. It appears

from birth. They have done lifetime studies and these characteristics start showing up even in infants. And so we are designed as introverts and extroverts. And then of course, things like environment shape us, but it does appear that there's some very biological basis for being an introvert or extrovert. Is it either or, or I would imagine it's more of a sliding scale. It is absolutely. It's a continuum. And I like to say it's a bit like being right or left-handed. So we both use our hands every day, all day, but there's one that's naturally stronger and that we rely on more, especially in certain situations. And so I'm not a big believer in the concept of ambiverts because of that wiring I just described. I think we are one or the other,

but of course extroverts can leverage some introvert strengths when they need to do. So introverts can leverage some extrovert strengths in certain situations. And so as you said so well, it's not really about extremes. It's about learning to make the most of who we are, but understanding one is going to come more naturally to us than the other. And I'm sure surveys have been done. What's your sense of how many of us are in the introvert camp versus the extrovert camp? Well, a study by the Myers-Briggs Foundation

found that 51.4% of the population is made up of introverts. So as a culture, we are more extroverted, but when it comes down to actual people in the population, it's about 50-50. Very often when you hear the word introvert, as in Holly's an introvert, you often hear in the same sentence that she's also shy. Shy and introversion seem to go hand in hand. Is that fair? Is that true? That is another big misconception. So shyness is about fear. And introversion is about, as we've been talking about, the preference for more minimally stimulating environments. And so an extrovert can be shy. If they're walking into a room and feeling fear because they're unsure how they're going to come across and holding back because of it, then that is shyness.

But introversion, again, is more about how we prefer to engage with our environment. So, of course, introverts can be shy, but the two are not the same. They're actually yourself back somehow. There's just that stigma. There is a stigma with introversion. And it's interesting because that's a very culturally specific stereotype. It is not worldwide. It's also not like that throughout history. We just happen to live in a time, especially in North America, where the culture leans a bit more extroverted. But for example, Finland is a very introverted country.

It also keeps getting ranked as the happiest country in the world. And so we tend to look at it that way here. But there are actually a lot of places where introversion is the more highly valued way of engaging with the world. And so I think that's important for people to know because introverts bring strengths that our culture needs, like our capacity for insight, our ability to respond rather than react, our desire to have meaningful relationships in a world where a lot of people are disconnected. And I'm so grateful that we have the strengths of extroverts too, but I never want introverts to underestimate what they

have to offer or feel like they need to change in order to impact the world. We need both extroverts and introverts to fully be who they are for our world to be at its best. And yet you so often hear the advice to come out of your shell, be more outgoing, that that's what's wrong with you, that you need to be more like an extrovert. Yeah. And a big part of that is that extroverts and introverts experience happiness differently. So for extroverts, happiness feels like excitement and enthusiasm. It's a very outward emotion. For introverts, happiness feels like calm and contentment. It's a more inward emotion. And so often when extroverts see an introvert just hanging out or reading a book or staring

at the waves at the beach, they think something must be wrong. This person isn't expressing happiness the way I would. And so they say things like, hey, come out of your shell or let's go do something fun when actually they're just seeing a different kind of expression of happiness. And so I think clearing up some of those misunderstandings is important. And so we can understand, hey, that introvert is perfectly content. And this is just, again, a different way of engaging with the world. One of the ways I think people identify or assume that someone is an introvert is from their behavior.

And I think the assumption is that when you see someone who's quiet, withdrawn, not engaged with people, that that behavior indicates introversion. Yes. And that behavior can be interpreted in different ways. So you might say that person is withdrawn. That person actually might be observant and highly perceptive. Introverts, because of our sensitive nervous systems, we're always taking in a lot. They work kind of like nets with tiny holes. And so some of the most creative people in the world, artists, chefs, authors are often introverts. And it's because of that way of observing. So often when you see an introvert that on the outside, you might just say, oh, they're withdrawn. They're actually highly engaged. They're just doing inward processing. And so in our culture, that's what

we project onto introverts. If you're quiet, if you're still, you must not be engaged. But if you could see on the inside, studies keep showing that introverts actually have a higher level of internal activity. And that often turns into contributions to our culture. A lot of technical innovations, a lot of great works of art, a lot of social causes have been advanced because of reflective, thoughtful introverts. And so, again, what extroverts have to offer is so valuable to you. But we need those quiet, reflective introverts as well. We're talking about introverts and extroverts, and we're talking with Holly Gerth. She's author of the book, The Powerful Purpose of Introverts.

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Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. So, Holly, when you say that a lot of creative people are introverts, I would also imagine a lot of creative people are extroverts. And you pointed out earlier that the population is basically 50-50 introverts or extroverts. So is creativity and introversion two things that go hand in hand, or you're just pointing out that there are creative people who also happen to be introverts?

In some areas, such as art and writing, there are higher levels of introverts. In more public forms of creativity, such as acting, then there's likely to be a more even split or even for it to skew a little more extroverted. But there are actually a lot of public figures that people wouldn't guess are introverts. For example, Oprah, Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Jordan are all introverts. What's the connection between being an introvert and wanting to be alone? So when an introvert is alone, they're withdrawing. Sometimes we do need to withdraw from that external stimulation because we have taken in all we can through our

nervous system for the time being. Like I said, if it's like a net, that net is full. And the way we empty that net out so that we can go back into the world is by having time to reflect and process inwardly and become re-energized. And so that is what introverts are doing. It's actually not about physical space alone. That's an element of it, but it's more about bringing mental order internally again, so that we're ready to re-engage with the world. What else do introverts have in common with each other? I'm thinking maybe something like maybe they're more sensitive, or maybe they're more empathic. But are there other things that introverts have in common,

or is that the thing and then everything else is different? I would say introverts have in common that they are highly perceptive for the reasons we've been talking about. Now that looks different depending on the introvert. So for example, an introvert that is more of a thinker is going to be highly perceptive, maybe when it comes to something like details on a spreadsheet or perhaps a nurse engaging with people. But that ability to be observant, which does lead to things like empathy and creativity and understanding details, I think is a real strength that introverts bring to situations. We also have in common that we take longer to process, which we can be hard on ourselves about, that it actually helps us to be very intentional when it comes to conversations and decisions. We think things through. We often can bring people together because we understand both sides of something. And so I think it's

about saying, okay, here are parts of myself as an introvert that maybe I've even been told you need to change. You need to be more outgoing. Why do you need time alone? And saying, what is the other side of that? What is the strength side of it? How can I use it to contribute to the world? And if you love, lead, or share life with an introvert, asking yourself the same thing. Have I been assuming things about this introvert in my life that may not be true? And what do they add to my life? And then of course, I would encourage introverts do the same with extroverts because we need them as well. I think it's just about figuring out how can we all be at our best and be better together. There is also, I think, a perception that introverts are less confident, less resilient, more sensitive,

that they're not the one to speak up in a meeting. They're more willing to sit back and let others speak. I would say if introverts struggle with confidence, it's because we're in a world that is more extrovert-centric. And so there is some pressure sometimes to feel like, okay, I need to be different than who I am. And that's why I'm really passionate about telling introverts, you don't need to change. There was a leadership study that looked at CEOs over a 10 year period and hundreds of companies. And the introvert CEOs were actually slightly more likely to outperform the expectations of their boards and investors. And that's not what we would guess in our world. And so I think it's pausing and saying, is this assumption really true? Do I need to really change as an introvert?

What areas do I need to grow in? You know, if an introvert is not fully contributing at work because they are a bit more hesitant to speak up in meetings or need that longer time to process, then maybe it's committing to taking time to prepare before every meeting, listing out questions. There are a lot of strategies that introverts can use in specific situations, or that if you are leading an introvert or have an introvert child, you can help them create some strategies for certain situations in their lives that might be a bit more challenging. And the same is true of extroverts. I've had extroverts tell me that sometimes they use time with other people to avoid themselves. It's hard for them to go inward and do that kind of personal growth work that we all need to at times.

I want to go back to what you were saying about stimulation, that introverts don't like as much stimulation as extroverts. And drill down a little bit to what that means. They don't like as much stimulation or they like different kinds of stimulation or not as intense. What do you mean by stimulation? Yes. Okay. So a setting where an extrovert would more likely feel comfortable is at a dinner party where there's multiple people in the room. Imagine there's music and a lot of conversation. There's food and lights. All of your senses are fully engaged at a high level.

That extrovert probably is a great storyteller who captivates the attention of that table. That is going to be energizing. That is high stimulation. So for the introvert, that's probably enjoyable for a while, but then they're going to start thinking, okay, I've hit my 10 point. I'm ready to go home and be somewhere quiet. And if an introvert really wanted to connect relationally, their sweet spot would be more likely to be something like coffee with one person where they are sitting across from them. They are making eye contact. They're talking about meaningful things in their lives. They're able to go deep. That is an example of lower stimulation. And so it's not about one being better than the other. It's just about it being different.

And of course, in life, you don't pick one or the other. We're going to be in both kinds of circumstances, but it's okay if one is more comfortable than the other for us. And again, you can make strategies for that. So when I go to a place where I'm going to be around a lot of people, like a conference, I like to find what I call a designated extrovert. And I tell this person, all right, walk around the room with me, help me make some small talk. And they're like, okay, if someone wants to go really deep and share their life story, then that's on you. And we say, okay, we've got this together.

Well, it's interesting. There are books like yours and other books and podcasts and speakers who talk about the challenges faced by introverts. But you don't often hear, I've never heard of anybody who speaks or writes about the challenges faced by extroverts and what they must adapt to get by in the world. What I often hear is introverts will say, I'm not enough. Extroverts tend to say, I'm too much. And so I would love for an extrovert to write the equivalent of those books you mentioned, because I would be the first to read it. I would love to better understand what are the challenges of this other type, because some of my favorite people, my daughter is an off the chart extrovert, and I would love to know how to love her even better. And so I do agree that

there's more conversation, probably around introversion right now. I hope that will balance out because I think we need to understand both types so that we can love and serve and live in this world together in the best ways possible. Yeah, because people will say, you know, I'm an introvert and I struggle with this, but I seldom hear extroverts say, I'm an extrovert and I struggle with this, but I seldom hear extroverts say I'm an extrovert and I struggle with this. It's like that's the acceptable way to be an introversion. You have to navigate differently because you're navigating in somebody else's world. Yeah, I do think that's true. And I actually sent out a survey to my readers on my blog and asked, are you an introvert or extrovert?

And what's your biggest challenge as an introvert or extrovert? And I was so surprised that the extroverts said their biggest struggle was loneliness. I would assume the opposite. And so I would love to hear a behind the scenes of, we may not always say it out loud, but as extroverts, we're actually longing for deeper relationship, which is what a lot of them said. Or like I said, you know, sometimes we feel like too much. We worry that we overwhelm people, whatever it is.

I would love to have more insight into that as well. Great. And if you have some insight you'd like to share with Holly, you can do so through her website and blog, which is at hollygirth.com, G-E-R-T-H, hollygirth.com. And she also has a quiz on her website that you can take. It only takes a minute and you can see where you fall on the introvert extrovert scale. Holly is the co-host of a podcast called More Than Small Talk, and the name of her book is The Powerful Purpose of Introverts. There's a link to her book at Amazon, as well as a link to her website in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Holly.

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Think about your sense of smell for a moment. What is that? What is a smell? What is your nose doing? And then telling your brain so your brain can make sense out of it and say, oh yeah, well, that's the smell of coffee or bacon or a flower. Your sense of smell is fundamentally different than all your other senses. It's often described as the sense you don't really appreciate until you don't have it anymore. Joining me is Anne-Sophie Barwich. She is a cognitive scientist,

an empirical philosopher, and assistant professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. The name of her book is Smellosophy, What the Nose Tells the mind. Hi Anne, welcome to Something You Should Know. Thank you very much for having me. So tell me why smell fascinates you so much. Smell fascinates me because it challenges our intuitions about how we think the mind works. We talk about objects of perception, we talk about the distance of objects or directionality, all that makes no sense when it comes to smell. What would be the directionality of a smell? So I thought, well, how else should we think about perception if we just look at smell rather than vision? So besides from the

obvious difference, what is it about smell that makes it so interesting because it's different than, say, vision? Well, vision, for instance, is a distal sense. You don't perceive objects. You perceive surface reflections. With smell, the molecules actually directly touch and tango with your nose. You are in direct material contact with the world, which, by the way, is a bad thing, actually, if you think about that the toilet often stings. And if you go to a public toilet, yeah, I'm afraid you're literally interacting with whatever somebody left there.

Well, thanks. That's really gross to think about. I'm afraid I could ruin many, many more things for you. For instance, coffee, but I might not do that. No, go ahead. You can't tease me like that and then not tell me. So coffee, for instance, we often think about, well, the smell of coffee, how is it caused by? And you've got hundreds and hundreds of molecules in coffee. Interesting enough, none of which smells of coffee. So you've got 800 different compounds that together create this beautiful coffee smell. However, you've got these individual compounds,

and a small percentage of these compounds is indole. And indole is a molecule that has a strong fecal smell, but you don't smell it individually. But yes, I'm afraid there is something less than tasty in your coffee. And so do people, absent any kind of disease or injury or anything, do we pretty much all smell things the same way? You would think so, but it turns out that's not the case. So my favorite example to illustrate what that means is androstenone. Androstenone is a chemical that's mainly a pig pheromone, but it does more than just make pigs attractive to each other. Humans can also smell it.

They can smell the odor of it, most of them. Some people can't. Some people can. And the people who can, some find it deeply unpleasant. They say, well, androstanone smells of urine. Okay. Some people say androstanone smells of body odor, also very unpleasant. And then you've got people say, I find it very pleasant. To me, it has a woody smell. It smells of body odor, also very unpleasant. And then you've got people say, I find it very pleasant.

To me, it has a woody smell. It smells of wood. And other people say, oh, this is actually floral. So you've got the same chemical with completely different associations in terms of what the quality is, as well as the hedonics, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant. And the reason for that is not that smell is simply subjective or some weird whim in your head. the reason for that is not that smell is simply subjective or some weird whim in your head. The reason for that is genetics. And so the genetic differences really lead to differences in perception, like whether the receptors in your nose are more or less sensitive to a chemical. Maybe you're also lacking a receptor in order to detect a chemical. So it's biological, actually. Is there a smell, has anyone uncovered a smell that is universally hated, that everyone dislikes,

or a smell that is universally liked, that everybody who smells it likes it? Not yet, but my best guess would be it would be bacon, fried bacon. Even vegetarians go like, well, that could change my mind. There hasn't been one found yet. A lot of these are culturally associated. And you would actually assume that there must be something that everybody hates. Turns out there's a molecule called cadaverine, which smells like cadavers. So it's like rotten flesh. It's deeply unpleasant.

But there are some people, if you dilute it down enough in water, if you just have it in a small, like a tiny concentration water, it's got a slight Swedish scent. It's slightly Swedish and some people like it. So there is for some reason, a lot of variability and people react differently to smells. It seems that smell is very adaptive in the sense that, like when I was a kid, I would go to this farm, this dairy farm in the summer. And as soon as you approached it, you pull in the driveway, the smell of the cows, the poop was horrible. I mean, just horrible. But within 20 minutes, you didn't even notice it anymore, that somehow your body, your sense of smell stops saying it stops alerting you to how horrible this is. And you just get on with your life. all the time everywhere because everything smells molecules volatile aromatic molecules come from all things everything smells you would go mental you would call for a lobotomy if you are constantly

distracted by all these smells especially the bad ones turns out uh your system your biological system your body adapts to these things so your receptors at some point stop firing they go like no no we've got the baseline we know what's in the surroundings here. That's why you also stop smelling yourself because you do smell. Of course, everybody has an own body odor, but you don't smell yourself. Also, your home, you only recognize its unique smell when you come back after holiday. And this is basically your biology muting down. So it mutes the input.

It hits the mute button in order for the brain to actually get a breather. I want to go back to what you said about bacon, because I love the smell of bacon, but I don't really like the taste of bacon. I don't eat bacon, I don't like the taste of it, but I love that smell. And that seems weird to me, because you would think if you like the way something smells, wouldn't you like the way it tastes? You would think so, but it turns out that's not the case. That's the same with coffee. Coffee smells amazing, but can I be honest? The taste is a little bit disappointing. Nobody says wake up to the taste of coffee. It's always the smell. Turns out you actually have two senses of smell. You have one

nose, but two senses of smell. And one smell, one sense of smell is when you inhale. So the molecules from the air, you inhale them, it's the kind of sniffing. But there's also retronasal olfaction, which basically means mouth breathing olfaction. And most of what you call actually taste is smell. Because what happens is when you chew, you also release aromatic molecules through chewing, which actually travel through the back of your throat up to your nose. So these molecules get pushed from the air in your lungs when you breathe out and you can test that. So next time you have a jelly bean or a glass of wine or something with an intense flavor, you hold your nose so that you

can't smell a thing. You chew, focus on the taste. It's surprisingly bland. Then release your nose so that you can't smell a thing. You chew. Focus on the taste. It's surprisingly bland. Then release your nose, breathe out, swallow, and you realize all these fruity notes or a lot of the flavors notes then suddenly hit you. They hit your mind. That's why when you have a cold, for instance, everything tastes bland and that's why coffee for instance but also cheese and many other things they have a flavor and a smell profile and now you would say well why do they then smell different if it's both in the nose well it turns out that because the air from the lungs that push these molecules up also change the airflow and the temperature. So molecules arrive at different orders at the epithelium, at the nasal tissue on the top of your nose.

And that actually changes the taste, well, the flavor. Well, if taste, if a large part of the sense of taste is really the sense of smell, then what does that mean to people who over time or for whatever reason lose their sense of smell or it becomes less potent? What does that do to your sense of taste? I would imagine you don't taste things as well. Oh, yes. You're actually losing a lot of the richness of the flavors because if you think about it, you don't have a strawberry receptor on your tongue. You don't have a mint receptor on your tongue. You've got sour, sweet, salty, bitter, and umami, which you know is that meaty, savory taste, but there is no apple receptor. So actually, if you were losing your

sense of smell entirely, as many people during COVID, for instance, did, what you can do is you can eat an apple and you can eat an onion and you will not be able to tell the difference. It's the same texture and it tastes the same, which is inconceivable if you think about it. Like apple and onion, anything more apart is hard to imagine. But apple and onion taste the same without the flavor. You said at the beginning that there's a connection between smell and cognition. Can you explain it? Oh, yes. One issue is, of course, the connection between smell and memory, because quite often one of the things we like to say as well, smell is, of course, the perception of chemicals. But how does the brain actually know what that chemical means or what it smells like? And with many things, we don't memorize smells as smells well, but we often associate some strong personal autobiographical bond with a smell. So I remember, for instance, the smell of my father's garage.

Other people might have the former lover's perfume. There are certain smells that etch themselves into memory. You walk somewhere, somebody passes by, wears the same cologne from your former lover, and you're back, you're immediately back. And these associations and memory aspects are still underexplored. I do think this is the holy grail of research

on the sense of smell today. This is one thing, memory. are still underexplored. I do think this is the holy grail of research on the sense of smell today. This is one thing, memory. The other thing is that you can get better if you actually think about smell. So smell is not just better than you think, if we think about the precision with which the nose detects chemicals,

but it's also better when you think. You can train your mind to discover new qualities that you wouldn't have noticed before good example is sometimes you know when you're walking somewhere and somebody says oh did you notice that let's say you have a glass of wine and like oh did you notice that vanilla note you didn't but suddenly it's in your mind from from one point to the other and from then on you can also focus on oh yes and there's also a little bit of blackberry. There's a little bit of cherry or plum in there.

If you focus on something, if you use your mind, you can actually go beyond, well, this kind of smells like red wine. And you go like, hmm, there's a profile here. There's different notes that actually form a whole picture. Everyone has had the experience of smelling something and have that smell basically transport them back to another time, another place, or a person. And it's somehow different than if you were to look at a picture that would remind you of the same time or place or person. That a smell takes you there on a different route than a photo would oh yes many people say well smells seem to be closer to emotion like you've got certain smells that's that pluck your heartstrings i think it's a bit more different because you have the same with music there are

certain songs you listen to um especially as a teenager, the first heartbreak, the first love, and you hear that song again, even though the song itself might not be the most like a masterpiece of music taste, but it still gets you into a certain emotional state. What makes smell, I think, more different, even from this emotionality associated with music, is that it instantly catapults you back almost physically. So when you smell something from your past, you're almost back to that time and place or the person next to you. It's got this embodied pull. It almost pulls you physically back to the time.

And that's why, for instance, if you lose a loved one, the last thing you give away is their clothes, their T-shirts or something, because it still has that smell lingering as if there's a physical presence to that smell. You know what's happened to me recently is I've smelled things that trigger a memory, but I can't remember the memory. I know this is from my past, but I can't remember the memory i know it i this is from my past but i can't remember from when oh yes this is uh you have it sometimes also as the so it's associated with the so-called tip of the nose phenomenon uh that sometimes you've got a smell like i know this and you've got a feeling with it and if if somebody were to tell you what it is or if you find a cue that triggers the precise association, it's immediately there. It's almost like, well, I know this actor.

The name is on the tip of my tongue. So there's a similar phenomenon, tip of the tongue and tip of the nose. But I know what you mean. And I think the ambiguity that you're not immediately going like it's this or it's that memory is because many smells are ambiguous, meaning they can come from a variety of things. So you're like, well, I kind of know this, but you often need a second cue or something that triggers the precise identification. What else in all the work you've done and researching this, what else about the sense of smell do you think is really interesting or that would surprise people?

One fascinating thing is that the receptors in your nose were only discovered in 1991. That's very recent compared to the history of physics or also research on vision. And why I find that fascinating is because I was always so enamored by the history of science. And I thought it must have been so great to be there at the frontiers of science when all these big discoveries happened. How how was it? How did people find that out? Because we only always just hear the finished reports. Well, it turns out that smell is such a research field just at the margins, catapulted into mainstream science and now progressing in a live stream in an ongoing way. So you can still talk to the people, they're still alive, who actually made the field what it is

today. So this is I find fascinating, just from a historical perspective. Well, I've always wondered why. I mean, you would think that the smells that we would find desirable are the ones in nature, and often they are. But we also like things like new car smell, which is, you know, all chemicals. We're told it's even bad to smell it, but there is something about it that's very appealing. Maybe it's just because it's a new car. Indeed. I was grinning because I think I like the new Mac, the new Macintosh smell, and you can buy that by now also as fragrances.

And there is even, if you want to do just a party game with a couple of friends, there's a perfume series. It's a very kind of a more of a cheap, fun perfume, the Demeter series, and they have different concepts associated with their smell. So you can get a perfume called Lobster, or you can get a perfume called Dirt, or Clean Linen, or even Funeral Home. So you've got the most sometimes natural smells like tomato, absurd conceptual ones like Funeral Home, and it smells like that.

So it's fascinating that chemists, fragrance chemists, can create certain object associations in your mind by molecules that need not come from these objects. So you can have a lobster that smells of lobster, or a perfume with molecules in there that need not come from lobster, but smell of it. But would you think funeral home perfume smelled like funeral home if you didn't know it was called funeral home perfume? That's the big question.

Well, for me, it smelled like carpet and earth. And so it's more of like a conceptual combination. You might not think funeral home if you smell it without the word or if you smell it without seeing something associated with it. The fun part is this was described by a German psychologist in 1916 saying, well, clearly there's a difference if you give people an odor or if you give people an odor with an object they see. The descriptions of that smell differ fundamentally. What about the idea of certain smells calming you down? You know, aromatherapy or, you know, I like the smell of cut grass and when I smell it, it's very relaxing to me. Is there something to that? I think there is something to it. I don't think it's necessarily, oh, this molecule always has that effect. But I do think you can condition yourself through smelling into a certain mental

state. I think you can do that with many things. It's like with meditation, you can train yourself. And I do wonder whether you can actually put it to good use so if you've got people with ptsd post post-traumatic stress syndrome and who are often triggered by let's say certain noises if they come back let's say from from a war or something whether you could counteract that by training them to okay if that happens uh do these meditative exercises with that kind of smell. So you're, again, using that smell as a tag, as a tag for memory, as a certain kind of behavior, as a training thing. I think you could use it for good. I don't think it's necessarily just

this chemical is always good or this chemical is always bad, but I think you can train yourself with like, I like that smell. I might use that smell to train myself to be calm. We're smelling things all day long. Sometimes, you know, very strong smells, but we don't stop and think, oh, I'm smelling that. But I can't imagine that given all the things we smell, that those scents, those fragrances, those odors, don't somehow work their way into what we're thinking, decisions we make, ideas we have, that kind of thing. One thing I find most fascinating is actually, we might not always be aware of smells, but they still influence our behavior. And you can, for instance, test that yourself. Next time you are in a waiting room let's say

especially if you're if you're at a train station or if you see people waiting to become invited to an interview job interview you often see them after a while actually fairly quickly put their hands to their nose especially after they shake the hands of the interviewer so we actually use our hands as an extended tool to smell our environment, to smell who's the other person. And there was an experiment done by an Israeli researcher, Noam Sobel, showing that we do smell our environment unconsciously and making judgements about things and people

even without noticing. And I like the fact that we can learn through smell a lot about what we're not conscious of, but what certainly influences our behavior. Well, our sense of smell, I think, is so much more important than we think it is because it doesn't capture our attention the way sight does or a loud sound does. But it's still, it's playing into everything we do. And it's interesting to hear how it all works. Anne-Sophie Barwich has been my guest. She's a cognitive scientist, an empirical philosopher, and assistant professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. The name of

her book is Smellosophy, What the Nose Tells the Mind. And there's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Anne. Thanks for being here. Thank you very much. This was a fun conversation. Thank you. S-O-S.

It's a universal phrase and signal for distress. But do you know what the letters S-O-S stand for? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. If you guessed save our ship or save our souls or sink or swim, well, don't feel bad. That's what most people think. But SOS started out as Morse code and it was chosen as a distress signal because SS is three dots, three dashes, then three dots again. And that's easy to transmit and not easily confused with other letters. Once radios came along in the 1920s, Mayday took over as the international distress signal.

It's another made-up word that was chosen because it's easy to remember and can be understood even if the radio signal is weak. And it also resembles the French word, m'aider, which means help me. So it was a logical choice. And that is something you should know. Probably the best way to support this podcast is to get us a listener. Tell someone you know to listen and good chance that they'll like it and keep listening. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love Top Ten lists? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial.

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