Verbal facility with smells and flavors doesn't come naturally. As babies, we learn to talk by naming what we see. Baby points to a lamp, mother says, 'Yes, a lamp,' says Johan Lundström, a biological psychologist with the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. Baby smells an odor, mother says nothing. All our lives, we communicate through visuals. No one, with a possible exception made for Sue Langstaff, would say, Go left at the smell of simmering hotdogs.
Communication about smells and flavors is not instinctive and is often underdeveloped compared to our visual language. As infants, we learn to associate names with objects we can see, like a lamp, through verbal interplay with caregivers. However, the recognition and discussion of odors are rarely emphasized, leaving a gap in our ability to articulate our experiences with scents.
Johan Lundström, a psychologist, points out that while visual cues dominate our learning and communication, scents do not receive the same attention. This deficiency highlights a broader trend where our interactions mainly center on what we can see, underscoring the need to enhance our vocabulary related to olfactory and gustatory experiences.
