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Olfactory Orientation and Navigation in Humans: e0129387

Although predicted by theory, there is no direct evidence that an animal can define an arbitrary location in space as a coordinate location on an odor grid. Here we show that humans can do so. Using a spatial match-to-sample procedure, humans were led to a random location within a room diffused with...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-06, Vol.10 (6)
Main Authors: Jacobs, Lucia F, Arter, Jennifer, Cook, Amy, Sulloway, Frank J
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Although predicted by theory, there is no direct evidence that an animal can define an arbitrary location in space as a coordinate location on an odor grid. Here we show that humans can do so. Using a spatial match-to-sample procedure, humans were led to a random location within a room diffused with two odors. After brief sampling and spatial disorientation, they had to return to this location. Over three conditions, participants had access to different sensory stimuli: olfactory only, visual only, and a final control condition with no olfactory, visual, or auditory stimuli. Humans located the target with higher accuracy in the olfaction-only condition than in the control condition and showed higher accuracy than chance. Thus a mechanism long proposed for the homing pigeon, the ability to define a location on a map constructed from chemical stimuli, may also be a navigational mechanism used by humans.
ISSN:1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0129387