Popular Physiology Review #3

Sensory Systems
Jacob Higginbotham
3/4/2014


1. I read:
Majid A, Burenhult N. 2014. Odors are expressible in language, as long as you speak the
right language. Cognition 130: 266270.
2. I was consciously unaware of the inability of English speakers to abstract smell
linguistically. It had never occurred to me that we always tend to relate smells to a
source, whereas we do not do the same with color. I learned that some languages, such as
Jahai, have a well-developed linguistic framework for describing smells not in terms of
source, but in abstract terms, similar to the idea of calling something red as opposed to
saying something is the same color as a rose.

I learned of several sensory tests used by researchers such as the The Brief Smell
Identification Test and Munsell color chips. I would like to learn more about these tests
and the statistical methods behind these tests.

3. The summary article states that the Jahai can pick out smells as easily as we pick out
colors. However, the results of the study are a bit more nuanced. While the Jahai were
far superior in picking out smells, their ability to code smells was less (on the Simpson
diversity index) than an English speakers ability to code colors. In fact, English speakers
ability to code color outmatched Jahai speakers ability to code color and smell. So, the
statement in the summary article leaves the impression that the Jahai ability to distinguish
smells is as highly codified in their language and cognition as color is for English
speakers. I think it would have been better for the article to make a bigger deal of the
fact that a culture has a developed sense of smell abstraction, challenging the long held
belief that such abstraction was impossible. The emphasis on the comparison of Jahai
smell ability to English color identification ability obscures this fact.

4. I would like to know more about Simpons diversity index. While I realize that anyone
coming from a technical background would know the specifics of that index, coming
from a lay person background renders results based on such ideas as almost meaningless.
Rather, it does not allow for an accurate interpretation of the magnitude of a finding.

I would also like to know why the color task was given first, and what effect, if any, the
order of the testing would have had on the results.



Popular Physiology Review #3
Sensory Systems
Jacob Higginbotham
3/4/2014