This book was conceived as a tribute to one of the founders of the psychological study of the sense of smell, Professor Trygg Engen. The book is divided into four sections. The first reunites the fields of psychophysics and the perception of environmental odours and discusses the impact of odours on beliefs and expectations. The second addresses cognitive processes in olfaction, how odours are interpreted, lexicalized, associated with contexts and remembered. The third focuses on the cerebral bases of olfactory awareness and the neuropsychological investigation of olfaction with special emphasis on olfactory dysfunctions, and the last concerns affective and developmental processes in olfaction. The aim in producing this book is that it will help promote further research in olfactory cognition and attract new inquisitive scientists to the field. The volume will be a useful resource for academics, students, and professionals who study olfaction, as well as to scientists who work in the domains of perception, cognitive neuroscience and environmental psychology more broadly.

Comprehensive Overview of Advances in OlfactionThe common belief is that human smell perception is much reduced compared with other mammals, so that whatever abilities are uncovered and investigated in animal research would have little significance for humans. However, new evidence from a variety of sources indicates this traditional view is likely

The human body has developed complex sensory processing systems which manifest themselves in our emotions, memory, and language. This book examines such olfactory and gustatory cognition. Leading experts have written chapters on many facets of taste and smell, including odor memory, genetic variation in taste, and the hedonistic dimensions of odors.

Computational neuroscientists have recently turned to modeling olfactory structures because these are likely to have the same functional properties as currently popular network designs for perception and memory. This book provides a useful survey of current work on olfactory system circuitry, including connections of this system to brain structures involved in cognition and memory, and describes the computational models of olfactory processing that have been developed to date. Contributions cover empirical investigations of the neurobiology of the olfactory systems (anatomy, physiology, synaptic plasticity, behavioral physiology) as well as the application of computer models to understanding these systems. Fundamental issues in olfactory processing by the nervous systems such as experimental strategies in the study of olfaction, stages of odor processing, and critical questions in sensory coding are considered across empirical/applied boundaries and throughout the contributions. ContributorsI. Fundamental Anatomy, Physiology, and Plasticity of the Olfactory System, Gordon M. Shepherd. John S. Kauer, S. R. Neff, Kathryn A. Hamilton, and Angel R. Cinelli. Kevin L. Ketchum, Lewis B. Haberly. Joseph L. Price, S. Thomas Carmichael, Ken M. Carnes, Marie Christine Clugnet, Masaru Kuroda, and James P. Ray. Michael Leon, Donald A. Wilson, and Kathleen M. Guthrie. Gary Lynch and Richard Granger. Howard Eichenbaum, Tim Otto, Cynthia Wible, and Jean Piper. - II. Developments in Computational Models of the Olfactory System, DeLiang Wang, Joachim Buhmann, and Christoph von der Marlsburg. Walter Freeman. Richard Granger, Ursula Staubi, José Ambrose-Ingersoll, and Gary Lynch. James M. Bower. Dan Hammerstrom and Eric Means.

Publisher description

Olfaction and its relation to mental health is an area of growing interest, evidenced by the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine being awarded for discoveries relating to odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system. Olfaction is of particular interest to specialists seeking a fuller understanding of schizophrenia, as clear deficits in the sense of smell could predict schizophrenia in apparently unaffected individuals. In this timely book, Warrick Brewer and his team of experts set out our current understanding of olfaction and mental health, relating it to broader principles of neural development and processing as a foundation for understanding psychopathology. The neuropathological, neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric aspects of olfactory function and disfunction are all covered (drawing on the latest neuroimaging techniques where appropriate), and indications for future research and applications are discussed. This will be a source of state-of-the art information and inspiration to all mental health professionals.

This book reconsiders the major current topics in the philosophy of perception using olfaction as the paradigm sense. The author reveals how many of the most basic concepts of philosophy of perception are based on peculiarities of visual perception not found in other modalities, and addresses how different the philosophy of perception would be if based on olfaction. The book addresses several aspects of olfaction, including perceptual qualities, percepts, olfaction and cognitive processes, and consciousness. The first part of the book considers perception with respect to its ability to guide behaviors and to make information available to cognitive processes. The author continues by addressing the differences between conscious and non-conscious olfactory perception, and presents an argument for an important role of attention in conscious processes. The book concludes by discussing the function of conscious brain processes and their link to guiding behaviors in complex situations.