Smelling in multiple dimensions

Synesthetic Correspondence: An Overview

Intramodal and cross-modal perceptual grouping based on the spatial proximity and temporal closeness between multiple sensory stimuli, as an operational principle has built a coherent and meaningful representation of the multisensory event/object. To implement and investigate the cross-modal perceptual grouping, researchers have employed excellent paradigms of spatial/temporal ventriloquism and cross-modal dynamic capture and have revealed the conditional constraints as well as the functional facilitations among various correspondence of sensory properties, with featured behavioral evidence, computational framework as well as brain oscillation patterns. Typically, synesthetic correspondence as a special type of cross-modal correspondence can shape the efficiency and effect-size of cross-modal interaction. For example, factors such as pitch/loudness in the auditory dimension with size/brightness in the visual dimension could modulate the strength of the cross-modal temporal capture. The empirical behavioral findings, as well as psychophysical and neurophysiological evidence to address the cross-modal perceptual grouping and synesthetic correspondence, were summarized in this review. Finally, the potential applications (such as artificial synesthesia device) and how synesthetic correspondence interface with semantics (sensory linguistics), as well as the promising research questions in this field have been discussed.

Human Olfaction at the Intersection of Language, Culture, and Biology

The human sense of smell can accomplish astonishing feats, yet there remains a prevailing belief that olfactory language is deficient. Numerous studies with English speakers support this view: there are few terms for odors, odor talk is infrequent, and naming odors is difficult. However, this is not true across the world. Many languages have sizeable smell lexicons - smell is even grammaticalized. In addition, for some cultures smell talk is more frequent and odor naming easier. This linguistic variation is as yet unexplained but could be the result of ecological, cultural, or genetic factors or a combination thereof. Different ways of talking about smells may shape aspects of olfactory cognition too. Critically, this variation sheds new light on this important sensory modality.

In smell's shadow: Materials and politics at the edge of perception

This article examines the politics of smell at the edge of perception. In January 2014, the municipal water supply of Charleston, West Virginia was contaminated by an under-characterized chemical, crude MCHM. Even when instrumental measurements no longer detected the chemical, people continued to smell its licorice-like odor. In a space where nothing was certain, smell became the only indicator of potential harm. Officials responded by commissioning state-funded sensory testing of crude MCHM to determine its sensory threshold. Via the critical passage point of sensory science, some instances of embodied attunement were allowed to enter into the evidentiary regimes of perception, while other, similarly trained moments of attunement were excluded from the process. This, I show, produced knowledge about the spilled chemical that maintained the systems that contributed to the spill in the first place. Drawing on new materialist thought, I riff on biology and 'transduce' the ephemeral phenomena of smelling crude MCHM into a new medium: Rather than thinking of smell as a volatile molecular material (an odorant), I show that consideration of smell as a manipulable object that one can imagine as having tangible substance and shape offers a way to experiment with disciplinary forms. I suggest an alternate future, where sensory science acts to record sensory labor that produces facts about collective experience that cannot (easily) travel through current systems, a process that is one possible way of beginning to unravel entrenched systems of toxic harm.

Bacteria associated with human saliva are major microbial components of Ecuadorian indigenous beers (chicha)

Indigenous beers (chicha) are part of the indigenous culture in Ecuador. The fermentation process of these beers probably relies on microorganisms from fermented substrates, environment and human microbiota. We analyzed the microbiota of artisanal beers (including a type of beer produced after chewing boiled cassava) using bacterial culture and 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene-based tag-encoded FLX amplicon pyrosequencing (bTEFAP). Surprisingly, we found that Streptococcus salivarius and Streptococcus mutans (part of the human oral microbiota) were among the most abundant bacteria in chewed cassava and in non-chewed cassava beers. We also demonstrated that S. salivarius and S. mutans (isolated from these beers) could proliferate in cassava mush. Lactobacillus sp. was predominantly present in most types of Ecuadorian chicha.

Listening-touch, Affect and the Crafting of Medical Bodies through Percussion

The growing abundance of medical technologies has led to laments over doctors' sensory de-skilling, technologies viewed as replacing diagnosis based on sensory acumen. The technique of percussion has become emblematic of the kinds of skills considered lost. While disappearing from wards, percussion is still taught in medical schools. By ethnographically following how percussion is taught to and learned by students, this article considers the kinds of bodies configured through this multisensory practice. I suggest that three kinds of bodies arise: skilled bodies; affected bodies; and resonating bodies. As these bodies are crafted, I argue that boundaries between bodies of novices and bodies they learn from blur. Attending to an overlooked dimension of bodily configurations in medicine, self-perception, I show that learning percussion functions not only to perpetuate diagnostic craft skills but also as a way of knowing of, and through, the resource always at hand; one's own living breathing body.