Humans Can Discriminate More than 1 Trillion Olfactory Stimuli

Humans can discriminate several million different colors and almost half a million different tones, but the number of discriminable olfactory stimuli remains unknown. The lay and scientific literature typically claims that humans can discriminate 10,000 odors, but this number has never been empirica...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2014-03, Vol.343 (6177), p.1370-1372
Main Authors: Bushdid, C., Magnasco, M. O., Vosshall, L. B., Keller, A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Female
Humans
Male
Mathematical extrapolation
Mental stimulation
Middle Aged
Molecules
Odorants
Odors
Olfactory discrimination
Olfactory Perception
Olfactory stimulation
Physiological stimulation
Psychological tests
Psychophysics
Sensory discrimination
Smell - physiology
Stimuli
Young Adult
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Summary:Humans can discriminate several million different colors and almost half a million different tones, but the number of discriminable olfactory stimuli remains unknown. The lay and scientific literature typically claims that humans can discriminate 10,000 odors, but this number has never been empirically validated. We determined the resolution of the human sense of smell by testing the capacity of humans to discriminate odor mixtures with varying numbers of shared components. On the basis of the results of psychophysical testing, we calculated that humans can discriminate at least 1 trillion olfactory stimuli. This is far more than previous estimates of distinguishable olfactory stimuli. It demonstrates that the human olfactory system, with its hundreds of different olfactory receptors, far outperforms the other senses in the number of physically different stimuli it can discriminate.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1249168