Identifying an odor usually takes 1 to 3 seconds through sniffing. However, a recent study has found that changes in smell can be detected in an even shorter time frame.
A new device allows researchers to control odors precisely, leading to the discovery that people can detect odor changes in just seconds, as reported in November 2024 in Nature Human Behavior.
“Every time you smell something, it’s like capturing a snapshot of the chemical environment,” explains Wen Zhou, a psychology researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. She notes that the experience of smelling a scent may seem instantaneous, but new research suggests otherwise.
Zhou’s team designed a device that can detect changes in pressure within the nose during sniffing. By emitting two different odors at different distances from the nose, the researchers tested over 200 participants to determine their ability to identify the order of the odors with high precision.
Despite the odors being released only 60 milliseconds apart, participants were able to accurately discern the odor order, indicating that our sense of smell operates at a speed comparable to color perception.
The findings raise questions about how the brain processes smells over time, especially considering the human nose’s ability to detect a vast number of odors. Zhou emphasizes the continued need to explore the brain’s mechanisms for processing olfactory information and the timing between sniffs.
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