>>> context weblog
an emerging culture observatory
| site map | about context | donate | lang >>> español - català - deutsch |
   "active, informed citizen participation is the key to shaping the network society. a new 'public sphere' is required." seattle statement

write your mail and will send you the updates
Google

context archives all www
 
| blogrolling | newswire |
> context weblog
sampling new cultural context
rss channel < friday :: december 29, 2006
learning to smell the roses

The smell of an odor is not merely a result of chemical detection but is also influenced by what the smeller learns about the odor. Now, researchers have discovered how such "perceptual learning" about an odor influences processing of information from the purely olfactory chemical detection system. Wen Li, Jay Gottfried, and colleagues at Northwestern University reported their findings with human subjects.

"Verbal context strongly influences the perception of odor quality—a rose by any other name would not smell as sweet," explained the researchers. "For example, the same odorant smells entirely different depending on whether it is labeled as fresh cucumber or mildew."

"Learning also changes odor quality. A cherry odor becomes smokier in quality after being experienced together with a smoky odor. Thus, a given set of olfactory receptors activated by an odorant may not map directly onto a given odor percept. Rather, odor perception may rely on more synthetic, or integrative, mechanisms subserved by higher-order brain regions," they wrote.

In a previous study, Gottfried and colleagues had identified regions of the cortex involved in "coding" odors. In the new study, they sought to explore whether perceptual learning about an odor lead to changes in subjects’ ability to differentiate the odors.

The researchers concluded that "prolonged exposure to one odorant resulted in improved differentiation among related odorants (and even among novel related odorants). Thus, with exposure to a floral-smelling alcohol (i.e., phenethyl alcohol), subjects effectively became floral ‘experts’ and simultaneously became experts for the underlying molecular group," they wrote. The subjects appeared to be "developing more refined, or differentiated, subcategories of these olfactory features," wrote the researchers.

"The current findings, along with recent data from our laboratory, provide further evidence that odor quality coding in olfactory cortex is not a straightforward outcome of odorant structure," they concluded. "In all likelihood, neural representations of odor quality are a dynamic product of lower-level coding from olfactory bulb and higher-level cortical inputs, under the regulation of learning and experience, attention, sensory context, and language.

"We speculate that the process of odor feature differentiation, via sensory exposure, may underlie much of the way that humans naturally learn to identify odors in the environment, with progressive and ever more refined differentiation, to the point where we are able to recognize thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of different smells," they wrote.

"This mechanism may underlie the acquisition of fine-grained percepts that distinguish, for example, the smell of Rosa damascena (Bulgarian Rose) from that of Rosa centifolia (Rose Maroc), to the point where we would be able to appreciate the immense richness of aromas in everyday life," they wrote.

Li et al.: "Learning to Smell the Roses: Experience-Dependent Neural Plasticity in Human Piriform and Orbitofrontal Cortices." Publishing in Neuron 52, 1097–1108, December 21, 2006 DOI 10.1016/j.neuron.2006.10.026 www.neuron.org >from *How learning influences smell*. December 20, 2006

related context
>
a quoi ca sert l'amour by edith piaf and theo sarapo
> window into human behavior, brain disease. 'von economo neurons may play a role in what makes humans 'human' – self awareness, moral reasoning and empathy –.' december 22, 2006
> how we differentiate smells. 'the magnitude of brain activity in the orbitofrontal cortex predicted how much of an olfactory expert a person would become as a result of passive learning. information about an odor is not static or fixed within these cortical regions, but is highly malleable and can be rapidly updated by perceptual experience. this malleability of the brain is called neural plasticity.' december 21, 2006
> paying attention sets off symphony of cell synchronization. 'the mystery of how attention improves the perception of incoming sensory stimulation has been a long-time concern of scientists. how attention operates?' december 20, 2006
> watch and learn. 'watching with intent to repeat ignites key learning area of brain.' december 20, 2006
> mental link between actions and words. 'what is the difference in our minds between talk and action?.' september 18, 2006

imago
>
a rose tree may be a rose tree may be a rosy rose tree
... if watered

sonic flow
>
... [mp3]
... [other formats]

| permalink


1,003,372 visits!
(june, 2005 - may, 2006)
context weblog surpassed 1,000,000 visits/year, for first time 133.243 visits, during may, 2006.
(data from webalizer, log analysis tool)
thks!

july 19, 2005 is our fifth anniversary: context we blog, since 2000!

download a comprehensive explanation on overall context' project in an article we published this spring in 'quaderns d'arquitectura i urbanisme' (pdf's print version in a zip file):
context@quaderns [en-ca] [7.65Mb]
context@quaderns [es-fr] [7.65Mb]


visquem can ricart !
reactivate + recuperate + explore
urban public space
> nau21, towards a new public domain

>
creative capital: culture, innovation and the public domain. august 19, 2005
>
tripolis: urban art and the public sphere. july 15, 2005
> can ricart + parc central, urban space of 21th century. june 10, 2005
> parccentralpark. may-september 2004






openfriday@straddle3

hackiluro and the hacklab experience


friday october 27, 2006 - 20.00
riereta 32, 1-3 - bcn o8oo1

archive
openfridays@straddle3
2002-2006

> context weblog december 2006
friday :: december 22, 2006
urban survivor: cities change the songs of birds

by studying the songs of a bird species that has succeeded in adapting to urban life, researchers have gained insight into the kinds of environmental pressures that influence where particular songbirds thrive, and the specific attributes of city birds that allow them to adjust to noisy urban environments. >more
friday :: december 8, 2006
"creative clusters" and real estate market boom

MyCreativity, a convention of international creative industries researchers. intended to bring the trends and tendencies around the creative industries into critical question. investment in "creative clusters" effectively functions to encourage a corresponding boom in adjacent real estate markets. >more
friday :: december 1, 2006
u.s. copyright office issues new rights

the librarian of congress, on the recommendation of the register of copyrights, has announced the classes of works subject to the exemption from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. >more
> context weblog archive
december 2006
november 2006
october 2006
september 2006
august 2006
july 2006
june 2006
may 2006
april 2006
march 2006
february 2006
january 2006
december 2005
november 2005
october 2005
september 2005
august 2005
july 2005
june 2005
may 2005
april 2005
march 2005
february 2005
january 2005
december 2004
november 2004
october 2004
september 2004
august 2004
july 2004
june 2004
may 2004
april 2004
march 2004
february 2004
january 2004
december 2003
november 2003
october 2003
june 2003
may 2003
april 2003
march 2003
february 2003
january 2003
december 2002
november 2002
october 2002
july 2002
june 2002
may 2002
april 2002
march 2002
february 2002
january 2002
countdown 2002
december 2001
november 2001
october 2001
september 2001
august 2001
more news in
> sitemap
      send your comments to context(at)straddle3.net






> context series

maping new cultural context
> review:
the evolutionary change of our species
> review:
art as a practice of life
> review:
a new cultural movement?
> semantic web
the second-generation web?
> weblog,
a new flow of information
> science commons
building a free flow of knowledge
> aesthetic computing
exploration of artistic methods and processes
> information arts
literacy for our techno times
> ground zero
911 keys
more series > sitemap
  information on arts, science, technology, and their intersections
| site map | about context | donate | lang >>> español - català - deutsch |
03 http://straddle3.net/context/