The fundamental role of memory in olfactory perception

Wilson, Donald A.; Stevenson, Richard J.

doi:10.1016/s0166-2236(03)00076-6

Cited by 240 publications

(180 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…This assumption is shared in the key literature that I discuss throughout this paper (e.g. Lycan 1996Lycan , 2000Wilson and Stevenson 2003, 2007Batty 2010aBatty , 2011Batty , 2014aCarvalho 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…This aspect of object-perception has been emphasised by a number of olfaction researchers (e.g. Wilson and Stevenson 2003, 2007Batty 2010a). Batty's abstract view takes there to be something akin to object recognition in the case of olfaction, even though there is no object individuation.…”

Section: Perceptual Constanciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some such as Carvalho (2014) and Wilson and Stevenson (2003, 2007 offer stronger accounts of object-perception, taking olfactory experience to present to us particular odour-objects individuated on the basis of their chemical structure. While my own view is more closely aligned with these approaches, both Carvalho and Wilson and Stevenson agree with Batty and Lycan that olfaction does not allow for spatial discrimination of odours, and as we shall see, their arguments for the individuation of odours are alone insufficient to counter Batty's objections.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Smelling objects

Millar

2017

Synthese

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Objects are central to perception and our interactions with the world. We perceive the world as parsed into discrete entities that instantiate particular properties, and these items capture our attention and shape how we interact with the environment. Recently there has been some debate about whether the sense of smell allows us to perceive odours as discrete objects, with some suggesting that olfaction is aspatial and doesn't allow for object-individuation. This paper offers two empirically tractable criteria for assessing whether particular objects are exhibited in perceptual experience-(1) susceptibility to figure-ground segregation and (2) perceptual constancies-and argues that these criteria are fulfilled by olfactory perception, and thus there are olfactory objects. I argue that there are, in fact, two different ways that olfaction allows for figure-ground segregation. First, I look at various Gestalt grouping principles, which are thought to govern when features are perceived as grouped into structured wholes, segregated from everything around them. I argue that these principles apply to olfactory experience, providing evidence of non-spatial figure-ground segregation. Second, I defend the contentious idea that a spatial variety of figureground segregation can also occur in olfaction. To see this, however, we need to look to empirical evidence showing that tactile stimulation and bodily movements play a crucial role in olfactory phenomenology. Finally, I draw on empirical evidence and olfactory phenomenology to argue that there are perceptual constancies in olfactory experience, allowing us to perceive odours as coherent objects that survive shifts in our perspectives on the world.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Perceptual Constanciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Smelling objects

Millar

2017

Synthese

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“…We speculate that the monosynaptic projection directly linking aPC to olfactory OFC would serve as a quick sweep of the odor environment, permitting fast, more reflexive sensory processing, at a coarse level of discrimination, and perhaps not contingent on conscious awareness. In turn, the transthalamic pathway, with at least two additional intervening synapses between aPC and OFC, would function at a slower timescale, but with a discriminative capacity much more finely tuned, and informed by cognitive factors, such as attention, expectation, and memory (Wilson and Stevenson, 2003). Such a system could serve as an effective gate for the direct pathway, helping to select only those inputs with behavioral relevance for additional processing downstream of OFC.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention to Odor Modulates Thalamocortical Connectivity in the Human Brain

Plailly¹,

Howard²,

Gitelman³

et al. 2008

J. Neurosci.

196

153

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It is widely assumed that the thalamus is functionally irrelevant for the sense of smell. Although animal studies suggest that the mediodorsal (MD) thalamus links primary olfactory (piriform) cortex to olfactory neocortical projection sites in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), this transthalamic route is regarded to be inconsequential, particularly compared with a direct monosynaptic pathway linking piriform cortex and OFC. In this study, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging with novel effective connectivity techniques to measure attention-dependent network coherence within direct (nonthalamic) and indirect (transthalamic) olfactory pathways. Human subjects were presented with (or without) an odor and with (or without) a tone, while selectively attending to either modality. Attention to odor significantly modulated neural coupling within the indirect pathway, strengthening MD thalamus-OFC connectivity. Critically, these effects were modality specific (odor Ͼ tone attention), directionally sensitive (forward Ͼ backward connections), and selective to route (indirect Ͼ direct pathway). Our findings support the idea that the human transthalamic pathway is an active modulatory target of olfactory attention. The results imply that olfaction, like all other sensory modalities, requires a thalamic relay, if only to consciously analyze a smell.

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“…However, humans have limited ability to discriminate individual components in odor mixtures (Livermore and Laing, 1996) and instead perceive complex mixtures as unitary olfactory objects. This quality of olfactory perception suggests that individual odorant features are integrated at higher levels of the olfactory system (Perez-Orive et al, 2002;Zou and Buck, 2006) (for review, see Wilson and Stevenson, 2003;Brunjes et al, 2005), although the nature of such integration remains enigmatic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%