Smound
perception or sense experience created from the convergence of scents and sounds in the brain
Smound is a perception or sense experience created from the convergence of scents and sounds in the brain. The word is a portmanteau of smell and sound.
Research by Wesson and Wilson
The smound concept is based on a study done by Daniel Wesson, PhD and Donald Wilson, PhD, researchers at the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research (NKI) in New York City.
The study, which was published in The Journal of Neuroscience, traced extracellular recordings from the olfactory tubercles of anesthetized mice. They found that 65% of single tubercle units responded to odours and 19% responded to auditory tones. When the tubercles were subjected to both odour and tone, 29% displayed supraadditive or suppressive responses. The authors of the study have suggested that this shows some cross-modulation between the two senses.
Applications
Scientific American has suggested that the results of this study could have a major impact on the study of synesthesia. The researchers plan to patent a device for sniffer dogs that would link inhaled scents with a sound, making the operations of these animals more efficient and effective.
History of the concept
The idea that sounds and scents may be linked in the brain was suggested in 1862 by G. W. Septimus Piesse, who said, "Scents, like sounds, appear to influence the olfactory nerve in certain definite degrees." Piesse also suggested that there may be an octave of odour.
The public source identifies “Smound” as perception or sense experience created from the convergence of scents and sounds in the brain. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Smound, perception and sense.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q7546514. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1862.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Smound” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.