Scents and Distances (08-25-23)
Ruzeviciute and colleagues investigated whether scenting an object influences how far people feel they are from it. The investigators learned, using a number of different scents, objects, and distances, that scented objects seem closer than those that aren’t: the “effect emerges even when scents emanate from targets that are typically unscented (e.g., notepad. . .), it is attenuated [reduced] when the scent is not associated with the target. . . . presence of an object's scent biased participants by making them underestimate the actual distance to the object.