Last year, a prominent study was released claiming that humans can detect a trillion distinct smells-- but, ASU researchers have called this into question.
The study has been widely disseminated and is already making it’s way into textbooks. It altered aroma compounds until people could no longer distinguish smells. It then took an equation to multiply those results and produced a number of possible distinguishable smells in the trillions.
“That’s where we jumped in and said 'time out,'" said Richard Gerkin, a researcher at ASU. "This is not quite the right way to do this problem."
He said misunderstanding and poor math used to get the number is the focus of a new report released Tuesday that criticizes the original research.
“That calculation doesn’t work," said Gerkin. "The way they determined ‘are two things similar or different?,’ the threshold they used, was a number that was very very sensitive to the design of the experiment. And it allowed them to basically generate any number that they wanted. And that’s not a really good procedure.”
Gerkin said it’s important because this misunderstanding can compromise future olfactory and neurological research. However, he and the original report authors will be collaborating to find a more accurate number.
