Is
the VNO the "Rod of Olfaction?"
Preconscious Olfaction, Exaltation, Visual Perception, and
the VNO
As at least one person is interested in my classification scheme,
I'm encouraged to
continue the theoretical discussion, making the picture even more complicated, in light of nonscents' comments. But
hopefully the
big picture will get a bit simpler and clearer! Uh oh, here comes another long
DoctorofScenTology post! Just look at it as a free Psychology of Scent lecture, where you won't even get thrown out
of the hall for drinking!
Hey, wait, this is cool!
Oh well, at least the hard
core nerds are still here! Cheers!
Regarding nonscents' null set thing, have you ever had the
sense, when "smelling pheromones", that you "smell something but you don't"? I have it often. I bet some of you
have, too. Often, when smelling pheromones, I
know I "smell" something, but it is indescribable or
"ghost-like".
It does seem to "piggyback" onto other smells I
can "consciously" detect. In other
words, it noticeably changes something about the smells you do perceive. In perfuming this is called "exaltation,"
In exaltation, a smell "glorifies" another smell without being itself smellable. A smell that exalts another
is a selfless team player, making the smells it is combined with more beautiful. This is, not suprisingly, a primary
attribute of musks, and should also be an attribute of human pheromones!
But if you focus on the pheromone
smell, it's "not really
there". In another sense, it
is there, but just hard to describe and
ghostlike (like a sight having an outline but otherwise lacking qualities).
Well, something like this might
be a way in which we can perceive airborne chemicals
consciously with the VNO. Yes, you heard me right!
Smelling consciously with the VNO! It's heresy!
The airborne pherochemical "means"
something to us
-- that it, it is
perceived -- even moreso in conjunction with standard, conscious smells we are fully aware
of; as a smell modifier or "exaltant", but does not essentially seem to be "consciously" smelled in the way we
customarily think of it, unless in unnaturally high concentrations.
This might be "the word's fault" more
than "the smell's."
We can almost call the smelling of exaltation "conscious olfaction".
Maybe we
can. Or maybe we should call it "preconscious", to borrow a term from psychoanalysis, to distinguish it from both
"unconscious" and "conscious." If we have to have a term for it, that might be the best one. For psychoanalysts,
"preconscious" means
potentially conscious: presently
accessible by consciousness; but not
presently grasped by our conscious minds. One way of thinking about this is to say that whatever we choose to
focus on becomes
fully conscious, compared to other things in our field of perception that we are not
presently focusing on, which are preconscious.
Honestly, though, it would probably be technically best,
eventually, to just enlarge our notion of what it means to have "conscious smells" to include things that are more
off in the background and not so rich for us, and fill in the "null set" talked about by nonscents! But for now,
enough of us remain out of touch with our worlds and ourselves in this way to call it something "lesser" than
conscious.
Since we don't have too many words for olfaction, as nonscents noted, let's borrow some
concepts from the study of vision, which has given us words out the wazoo! (wish I had a smiley for this one!!
)
The "cone/rod parallel" from the science of visual sensation and perception might throw some "light" on the
situation.
Those of you who studied the eye in physiology will know what I am talking about.
Smelling
pheromones is partly similar to seeing a
faint star in the sky better
when not looking directly at it.
Most of us have had this experience. If not, try it! It's easy to notice! If you kinda look out of the side of your
eyes on a clear night, you'll see more stars!
In vision, this phenomenon results from the difference
between "cone" and "rod" vision, relative to the structure of the eye. Cones detect color well, and shades of
light/dark poorly, while rods detect light and dark very well, but are color blind.
The human eye is
structured so as to have many
cones but few
rods at the part of the eye in the middle of the back
which is struck by light when we consciously focus on something we see. Things in the middle of our field of vision
are literally more colorful, due to cones, then! Slightly further out is a subtle halo of less colorful brightness,
due to the greater number of rods away from the middle of the back of our eye. Painters from the school of realism,
take note!
So cone vision is more directly connected to
focal consciousness (the part corresponding
to the
"figure" as opposed to the
"ground", as Gestalt psychologists of perception say) than rod
vision. Rod vision is better at night, contributing to survival capabilities or
biological functioning; but
is unable to detect richer,
more aesthetic aspects of sights, i.e., color. Still, rods help keep us safe from
background threats to our survival.
My point being?!
I am suggesting here that perhaps
standard olfactory detectors might similarly be more connected with
focal (figural) olfaction, whereas the
VNO is more connected with the
background for other smells we focus on; and less connected with
focal
olfaction.
The VNO may well be the "rod of olfaction"!
Maybe it's premature to
conclude that the VNO is
not an instrument of conscious perception! After all, rods can be used in conscious
vision, but just don't yield as rich of information. Do you see the distinction?
We have
not had a chance to know all this until now, due to the exclusive focus on non-human biology when it comes to VNOs!
Biologist types have been doing all the talking! But rats, pigs, and fruit flies aren't so kind as to share their
experiences directly with us. People can!
So now it is time for regular people, and psychologists, to speak up.
That is what makes this forum better than scientific conferences on pheromones in so many respects.
Just as there are two different kinds of cells that detect light, for color and light; there appear to be at
least two different kinds of cells that detect airborne chemicals.
Similarly, the VNO contributes to
survival by helping us "smell" things we normally couldn't, for the the sake of biological fitness. But the
"smells" in question are barren of describable qualities that conscious smells normally possess. In vision these
qualities are called "colors", of course. In olfaction we have no word for it -- which should tell us how out of
touch humans have become with their noses!
Perhaps because we aren't in touch with our senses of
smell these days as we could be, we typically don't recognize the experiences as smells at all. That doesn't mean
we couldn't learn to recognize them as such.
The problem with this, theoretically speaking, is that I've
had the experience with -none -rone and -nol, as well as the known VNO activator, A1; but the former three -mones
are not thought to activate the VNO. This suggests that there might even be a third type of smell receptor, or at
least that we don't understand standard and VNO olfaction too well yet.
So for now, this phenomenon must
remain partly a mystery of smell.
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