Humans Can Discriminate More than 1 Trillion Olfactory Stimuli

被引:535
作者
Bushdid, C. [1 ]
Magnasco, M. O. [2 ]
Vosshall, L. B. [1 ,3 ]
Keller, A. [1 ]
机构
[1] Rockefeller Univ, Lab Neurogenet & Behav, New York, NY 10065 USA
[2] Rockefeller Univ, Phys Math Lab, New York, NY 10065 USA
[3] Howard Hughes Med Inst, New York, NY 10065 USA
基金
美国国家卫生研究院;
关键词
D O I
10.1126/science.1249168
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
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.
引用
收藏
页码:1370 / 1372
页数:3
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