Different cultures, yet react similarly to scents

Different cultures have different vocabularies. But one thing unites them – they perceive smells similarly. Both hunter-gatherers and Westerners find the same smells pleasant and unpleasant.

Hunter-Gatherers and Their Ability to Name Smells

One previous study by Asifa Majid of Radboud University Nijmegen showed that hunter-gatherers have an excellent ability to name different odors. The new experiment also relied on odor naming, but it involved 30 Jahai speakers and 30 Dutch speakers. Their attempts were videotaped, and their facial expressions were later analyzed.

The Jahai and Dutch languages ​​and the naming of smells

The test confirmed that the Jahai use specific words to describe smells, for example, they have a specific word for the smell of smoke, plants, gasoline, or meat or fish. The Dutch, on the other hand, focus on identifying the source of an odor, for example, when standing next to or driving by a garbage truck. The Jahai responded faster than the Dutch (2 seconds vs. 13 seconds), provided shorter responses, and were more consistent in their descriptions of odors. Linguists attribute these results to the Dutch having difficulty describing smells, as they lack the appropriate vocabulary.

Different cultures, same reactions to smells

So much for language. Analysis of the video recordings showed that both groups responded emotionally to scents in the same way. The same scents repulsed both groups—as evidenced in the video by lowered eyebrows and wrinkled noses. The authors of the analysis, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, concluded that despite different cultures and languages, we perceive scents similarly.