Effects of Ambient Noise on Reading Comprehension

Dear Senserely Yours,

My finals are coming up soon and I have to study really hard to pull up my grades.I’ve noticed that some of my classmates study in coffee shops and some study in libraries. I usually prefer the peace and quiet at home but I always fall asleep when studying. I’m trying to decide which is the best place to study. Can you help me?

-Sleepyghurl_zzzz

Dear Sleepyghurl_zzzz,

It’s great that you are trying to study hard for your final exams. Yes, you’re right. At around this time, coffee shops and libraries usually have more people coming in than on regular days. People have their reasons on choosing one over another. Maybe some prefer studying while sipping coffee or munching on cookies in the cafe. Some, on the other hand, might prefer the silence in the library. There are still other differences between these two but the most obvious one would be the level of background noise present in each of those environments.

Interestingly, a few students here at Senserely yours were interested in knowing the effects of ambient noise on task performance. We designed and conducted a study exploring this area. Our inspiration in choosing the types of noise we used came from everyday observations. For example, there are some who say that they listen to music or watch television while studying. From here, we decided to see whether one form of noise causes greater disruption than another. Thus, we focused on the effects of two kinds of ambient noise -  instrumental music and speech conversations. To make it seem more like a student’s typical study session, we selected a reading comprehension task to measure task performance under ambient noise. The results of our study show that it does not really matter where you go during your study sessions, whether it be in locations where music is playing or where people are having conversations. The differences found between these conditions proved to be insignificant. However, after getting feedback, it is important to note that the volume of the music and the conversation tracks played during our experiment may have been placed at a level which was not distracting to the participants. So we would not suggest studying at a rock concert just because our results say there is not much difference.

I’ve also noticed how you brought up that you preferred studying at home because of the peace and quiet it gives you. Is that because you’re able to concentrate more on your work than you usually do with other people present? Interestingly, we also looked into the individual’s levels of extraversion-introversion to see how it relates to their performance in the presence of noise. Several previous studies have explained that introverts tend to have a lower optimum threshold, which means that it takes less amount of stimulation for them to reach their optimum performance levels. Anything beyond that is detrimental to their performance. Meanwhile, extraverts tend to have higher thresholds. It takes much more stimulation for them to reach the same level of stimulation as introverts. Because of this, extraverts tend to seek arousal or stimulating situations. Performance of extraverts are affected when noise levels diverge in either directions (i.e. higher or lower than their optimum threshold) whereas the performance of introverts are affected only if noise levels exceed their optimum threshold. What all of these findings imply to performance is that extraverts have been consistently shown to perform better in the presence of noise than introverts. Meanwhile, the latter has shown a decrease in performance in a similar stimulating condition. Although these findings were not reflected in our current study, it is important to know what learning environment is best suited for you if you’re an introvert or an extravert. This can help you find a healthy study environment that can facilitate your learning, thus helping with concentration and with your final grades!

As to your question on whether going to the library is a better choice, we cannot really tell you based on our study alone. We cannot compare the effect of silent and noisy environments on task performance since we did not have a silent condition, wherein no noise was presented. However, the current studies of other researchers highlight that it might be wise to study in more quiet places, given the finding that all forms of noise might still affect performance, one way or another.

It is important, however, to take this with a grain of salt. There are other factors which we have not yet controlled for and some of these have been suggested by other researchers as affecting the relationship between noise and performance. Other factors such as individual noise sensitivity, motivation, mood, attitudes and comprehension skill in general were never controlled in our specific study but present an exciting line for future research, as these factors might have effects on performance.

Much like other fields of interest, it is important to not rely on just the results of one experiment, but to look at the pool of evidence as a whole and come to a conclusion yourself. Might I suggest reading more studies about this field? Good luck with studying! :)

Senserely yours,

Tin, Mika, Dea, Yana & Jan

Reference:

Antonio, M.K., Ayson, M.F., Empamano, A.F., Raymundo, D.A., & Yu, J.L. (2014). Effects of Ambient Noise on Reading Comprehension. Unpublished Paper for Psychology 135: Sensation and Perception, Department of Psychology, CSSP, UP Diliman.

I See Your True Colors

I See Your True Colors: The Effects of Color on the Perception of Emotions on Gist of Scenes

Antonio, Anne Bernadette S.

Chuahiong, Jade

Garcia, Christine Holly Y.

Hontiveros, Maria Melisa C.

Lasam, Von Carlo D.

Abstract

Color is a relevant feature in our environment and it has been associated with a number of things. A great deal of research has focused on associations of colors with emotions. Emotion is a complex series of events related with each other through certain ways (Plutchik, 2001). Results from color and emotion studies conducted lead to the conclusion that colors are associated with specific emotions (Groenholm, 2004; Yong, Sudirman, & Chew, 2012). However, color and emotion associations are not fixed and may vary depending on factors such as age, sex, and culture (Kaya & Epps, 2004; Saito, 1996). The perception of scenes are also explored in this study in such a way as to know whether people have the ability to perceive the gist of a scene despite having viewed the scene for only a very brief period of time (Fei-Fei, Iyer, Koch, & Perona, 2007). The goal of this study is to know whether colors have effects on the perception of emotions on the gist of neutral scenes. Eighty participants were shown two neutral scenes in increasing time duration and asked for the gist of the scene and the emotions the scene elicited. Results for the gist of the scenes showed that most participants had a common perception of the scene and salient features were noticed by all the participants. Results for color and emotional association showed that there was no significant difference between the perceived emotions of the neutral scenes whether they were filtered with emotionally-positive or negative colors.

References:

Fei-Fei, L., Iyer, A., Koch, C., & Perona, P. (2007). What do we perceive in a glance of a real-world scene? Journal of Vision, 7(1), 1-29. Retrieved from http://www.journalofvision.org/content/7/1/10.full.pdf+html

Groenholm, M. (2004). Color psychology: The color affects system. Retrieved from http://ebookbrowsee.net/micco-groenholm-on-color-affects-system-pdf-d137724338

Kaya, N., & Epps, H. (2004). Relationship between color and emotion: A study of college students. College Student Journal, 38, 396-405. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=547c44c3-a516-4232-b779-2558581ed9d4%40sessionmgr111&vid=5&hid=128&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=14669489

Plutchik, R. (2001). The nature of emotions. American Scientist, 89, 344-350. Retrieved from http://www.emotionalcompetency.com/papers/plutchiknatureofemotions%202001.pdf

Saito, M. (1996). Comparative studies on color preference in Japan and other Asian regions, with special emphasis on the preference for white. Color Research and Application, 21(1), 35-49. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1520-6378(199602)21:1<35::aid-col4>3.0.CO;2-6

Yong, C.Y., Sudirman, R., & Chew, K.M. (2010). Color perception on facial expression towards emotion. Telkomnika, 10(4), 723-733. Retrieved from www.researchgate.net/...Colour...on.../72e7e529972ed21ba1.pdf

Stress Eating

Dear Senserely Yours,

            My finals are coming up soon and I’ve been busy studying all week. In order to stay awake, I’ve been eating a ton of food. Chocolates, junk food, ice cream, you name it. However, I’ve been starting to notice that the food I used to love doesn’t taste as good as it used to. I don’t know what’s happening. Even my comfort food, my mom’s pasta doesn’t taste as delicious as I remember. Is the quality of food getting worse or is there something wrong with me? HELP! I can’t focus on my readings with my problem.

From,

Aly

We eat a lot when we're stressed

Dear Aly,

            I appreciate that you took time off from your studying to ask your question. In return, I’ll try to keep my answer brief and concise so you can go back to your schoolwork.

            I don’t think the taste of the food you’ve been eating has drastically changed, although I do have to warn you to lessen your junk food intake because it’s not a healthy habit. I do think you are under tremendous pressure to do well in your finals and this is causing you a lot of stress. Stress does not only affect your focus and concentration, but also your taste perception.

             A groundbreaking study by Donaldson (2006) revealed that there are two neurotransmitters that cause taste disturbances, noradrenaline and serotonin. Believe it or not, when you are under stress, you have lower noradrenaline and serotonin levels. This causes impairments in your taste perception.

            Specifically, a study by Breslin shows that when you are anxious, you become less sensitive to fatty taste. This causes you take eat more fatty foods because you require a larger amount before you can start tasting the fatty flavour. Now that’s why you can’t stop eating junk food!

            You must be wondering how exactly does stress affect taste perception. Well, it all comes down to our brain’s attentional capacity. Basically, this means that because most of our cognitive resources are focused on doing a particular task, such as reading or studying for a difficult exam, there is less that can be used to perceive taste. This is why food starts to taste bland. And like in Breslin’s study, causes you to take in more food because you try to satiate your preference for more intense flavours.

            I hope I was able to answer your question, Aly!  Don’t be too sad about the food. Once you finish this stressful part of your life. Your taste perception will slowly go back to normal and you can enjoy food again! Until next time!

REFERENCES:

Fleming, A. (2013).  How stress affects your food: from distorted tastes to comfort eating. The     Guardian.   Retrieved http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/dec/03/stress-food-tastes-comfort-eating-depression-anxiety

Heath, T. P., Melichar, J. K., Nutt, D. J., & Donaldson, L. F. (2006). Human taste thresholds are       modulated by serotonin and noradrenaline. The Journal of neuroscience, 26(49), 12664-12671.

van der Wal, R. C., & van Dillen, L. F. (2013). Leaving a Flat Taste in Your Mouth Task Load Reduces Taste Perception. Psychological science, 24(7), 1277-1284.

The Smell of the Sunflowers

The Smell of the Sunflowers

Dear Berna,

            Hi! I've been a stepmom to my boyfriend's child for three years now after he and his former wife separated.  His child, Christine, was left by her mom when she was just one and a half years old. For the past weeks, Christine has been bugging me that there seems to be something so important that she cannot pull out of her mind whenever she's smelling the sunflowers that I planted on our backyard. Since she seems to be so occupied with it, I decided to ask Marko, my boyfriend, if there is something about sunflowers before I met him. He told me that his ex-wife's perfume is sunflowers' scent and maybe that's what Christine has been recalling. My question is, is that normal? I mean, Is she supposed to remember something about her mom even though she was not able to meet her? Hoping you could help me with this question.

                                                                                                        Confused and Hoping,

Nida               

Hi, Nida!

            Wow! Sunflowers seem to be so emotion-inducing right now. It just so happened that I've been hearing people here and there talking about sunflowers and I'm just thinking, "Uhm, what's up with sunflowers?"

            Putting that aside, I think your story is very interesting considering that it involves infantile memory and most people think that infantile memory is not stored in our memory because of infantile amnesia (Meltzoff, 1995). However, we must remember that a lot of stimuli can trigger us to remember things without us wanting to and an example of this is the scents or odors we smell in our environment.

            Indeed, it is possible that what Christine has been recalling with the scent of the sunflowers is her mother's scent. However, as you can see, she cannot really remember it since she was not able to encode in her mind the association of the odor with her mother. She just know that there is something about the scent that she seems to smell all the time when she was still young.

            The scents of different objects in our environment can help us retrieve memories due to our sense of smell's connections to the different parts of our brain that works whenever we encode and retrieve information. Moreover, Riggio (2012) noted in his article that most often, the memories we retrieve through our sense of smell are those that we had in our early years; that is, there is a strong connection between the odors we smelled early in life, usually before the age of five, and positive or pleasant memories. These memories, most of the time, are also those that are emotion-laden (Shrode, 2012). For the recall of information to occur, it is necessary that the scent is strongly present during the encoding as well as the retrieval.

            In support with the information provided by Riggio (2012) and Shrode (2012), Chu and Downes (1999) have also published articles proposing that our sense of smell or olfaction is the most powerful sensory modality in bringing back autobiographical information.  This ability of our sense of smell to recall autobiographical information is referred to as the Proust or Proustinian phenomenon which is after Marcel Proust, the man behind the concept (Collins, 2012).

            Why does our sense of smell have this very powerful ability of bringing back memories? According to various articles such as that of Shrode (2012), our olfactory bulb has connections both to hippocampus and amygdala. Hippocampus, as we know, is responsible mainly for the formation of memories while amygdala serves primarily as the emotion center of our brain (Riggio, 2012). This could be the physiological explanation as to why we can easily associate certain scents to memories especially those that are emotionally-laden. This ability of humans as well as of many animals is known to be evolutionary and to serve survival function since it enables us to easily associate scents to different objects through our memories. We associate good scents with objects improving survival and foul scents with objects that reduces survival.

            This could be why the smell of sunflowers lights -a-bulb-up in Christine's mind, Nida. She might have learned the scent when she was a baby and associated it to nurturance and to something that is always with her. However, since she was not able to have a concrete memory of her mother considering she was not able to meet her face-to-face when she was old enough, she cannot actually pull the information out of her mind. No worries, Nida! It is not wrong to let Christine know that the scent of the sunflowers is the scent of her mother's perfume. Maybe doing that would actually help her answer the question running through her mind for quite some time. I hope my answer helped you in any way.

Senserely yours,

       

Bernadette

           

References

Chu, S. & Downes, J.J. (1999). Odour-evoked autobiographical memories: Psychological investigation of Proustian phenomena. Oxford Journal, 25(1), 111-116. Retrieved from chemse.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/1/111.full

Collins, N. (28 Jan 2012). Smells can trigger emotional memory, study finds. The Telegraph. Retrieved 22 March 2014, from www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9042019/Smells-can-trigger-emotional-memories-study-finds.html

Meltzoff, A.N. (1995). What infant memory tells us about infantile amnesia: Long-term recall and deferred imitation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 59, 497-515. Retrieved from http://ilabs.washington.edu/meltzoff/pdf/95Meltzoff_JECP.pdf

Riggio, R.E. (1 May 2012). Why certain smells trigger positive emotions. Psychology Today. Retrieved 22 March 2014, from www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201205/why-certain-smells-trigger-positive-memories

Shrode, L.R. (2012). The influence of odor and emotion in memory. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=psychology_students

Photo credits

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/imagesq=tbn:ANd9GcQ1wTGI9ukQNn4BEy5MLroDPq3L35G2-l5Dz5MzMbKDj6cSHw0eIg

Let it go! Let it goooooo!

Dear Senserely Yours,

I have recently embarked on this journey to attempt to lose some weight. I am having some problems because I am experiencing a great amount of pain during my workouts. Is there any possible way which I can desensitize myself?

With much pain,
Alex

Hello Alex!

First of all, I just would like to congratulate you on your current attempts to lose weight. I know exercise can be grueling and painful, bit it is a necessary step you need to take in order for you to lose weight. If you want to relieve pain post-workout, maybe you should try to take some over the counter painkillers which are easily accessible. If, however, you are not really into that, I have a suggestion which may actually improve your pain tolerance. I have to warn you though, if you are the conservative type, you will not like this suggestion.

Psychologist Richard Stephens and colleagues actually found out how cursing changes our response to pain. In their study, a number of participants placed their hands in an ice bath. As you can imagine, this has to be an extremely uncomfortable experience for those participants. Luckily, the participants could remove their hands at any point in this study the researchers sought to measure the amount of time spent in the ice bath as a measure of pain tolerance. Stephens and his colleagues then tasked the participants to repeat either a curse word or a neutral word (ie. table, chair) throughout the process.

The results of this study was actually surprising. Apparently, those who were cursing while dipping their hands in the cold water were able to sustain that position for longer period of time than those who were repeating neutral words. Maybe in your next workout, you can try this out. I suggest, though, that you don't raise your voice when you do so since we do live in a conservative country. With luck, you may be able to increase your workout time or intensity of your exercise.

How exactly does this work? The researchers theorized that cursing brings about certain emotions. Now, emotions and its influence of pain has been studied with rather inconsistent results. However, some emotions do have some pain-relieving effect. These emotions are mostly linked to fear which activates the fight-or-flight response in humans. The fight-or-flight response, as we all know, creates an array of physiological changes in the human body, and one of those effects is increased pain-tolerance. However, it is not certain whether fear is the specific emotion involved in this experience. Aggression could also be another emotion which is induced by cursing and could contribute to the pain-relieving effect.

Furthermore, cursing has been shown to activate different brain areas as compared to regular speech. Cursing activates some of the more ancient areas such as the amygdala which is a region of the brain related to the experience of fear. This region is also activated during the fight-or-flight response. Therefore, there may be actual truth in the hypothesis of Stephens and colleagues. So Alex, the next time you step into the gym and feel like you are being overcome by pain. Don't be shy and let out a few cuss words in order to relieve your pain.

Senserely yours,
Jan

References:

Stephens, R., Atkins, J., & Kingston, A. (2009). Swearing as a response to pain. Neuroreport, 20(12), 1056-1060.

Picture credits:

http://burlingtonneurology.com/assets/images/neck%20pain%20image.jpg

The Axe Effect

Dear Senserely Yours,

I was watching Got to Believe's Best Ending Ever when suddenly it was time for a commercial break. The Axe commercial played where, like all of their previous commercials, the girls chase the dude who sprayed himself with Axe. I just wanted to ask if things like a person's smell can have an effect on his or her attractiveness. Can smell affect how we see a person?

Ilong Ranger

Axe Commercial: Even Angels Will Fall

Dear Ilong Ranger,

Usually, when we think about a person's attractiveness, the first thing that comes to mind is how he or she looks. Physical attributes play a key role on how we rate a person's attractiveness. The power of olfaction has been given much less importance when compared to vision and hearing. Most people believe that they rely very little on their sense of smell and more on their sense of sight when assessing potential mates (Grammer, Fink, & Neave, 2004). However, a number of studies have shown that olfaction has a contribution in mate choice. Olfaction, whether conscious or unconscious, can play a significant role in human reproductive biology. Olfactory receptors send projections to the neocortex for conscious processing but in addition to this it also sends projections to the limbic system for emotional processing. This makes olfactory signals induce emotional responses even if the olfactory stimulus is not perceived consciously (Grammer, Fink, & Neave, 2004).

Returning to olfaction and attractiveness, a classic study done by Thornhill and Gangestad (1999) demonstrated that attractiveness judgments done by females are at least in part guided by olfaction information. They found that the attractiveness of male body odor has a positive correlation with facial attractiveness and negatively with fluctuating asymmetry. Other past studies that were based on questionnaires asked female participants to rate the relative importance of the different senses used within mate choice. The first study found that females rate olfactory cues as more important than all the other sensory cues when choosing a potential mate (Herz & Cahill, 1997 as cited in Havlicek et al., 2008). The second study done by Herz and Inzlicht (2002 as cited in Havlicek et al., 2008), which allowed participants to select characteristics related to social and personality factors of a potential partner in addition to physical factors, found that men and women rated the pleasantness of the potential lover as most important but when it comes to physical cues, body odor was the most important for women while men placed more importance on visual appearance. 

It is important to note that most of the studies done comparing the importance of visual and olfactory cues of attractiveness has relied mostly on retrospective self-report methods that ask respondents to recall the importance of attractiveness cues (Foster, 2008). Foster (2008) studied the importance of sight and smell by exposing participants to actual stimuli unlike prior studies that used survey measures. He found that sight is more important than smell when women judge men's attractiveness given that they are tested under conditions that approximate how attractiveness perceptions are made in the natural environment. In addition, he also found that women's fertility may also play a role in the extent to which women use olfactory information when making judgments on attractiveness. Smell may influence the attractiveness judgments of fertile women more than infertile women. Foster (2008) concluded that olfactory cues are important determinants of general attractiveness, at least in fertile women, but visual cues are significantly better predictors of attractiveness judgments.

Studies like Foster's add to the growing body of literature concerning how humans judge attractiveness. Indeed, olfaction plays a role on how we judge the attractiveness of other people. So when you want to attract someone, make sure you just don't look good, but also make sure you smell good.

Senserely yours,

Holly

References

Foster, J. D. (2008). Beauty is mostly in the eye of the beholder: Olfactory versus visual cues of attractiveness. Journal Of Social Psychology, 148(6), 765-774. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=64f51c79-9408-4871-a51c-a70aca1a15e0%40sessionmgr4005&hid=4112

Grammer, K., Fink, B., & Neave, N. (2005). Human pheromones and sexual attraction. European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, 118(2), 135-142. doi:10.1016/j.ejogrb.2004.08.010

Havlicek, J., Saxton, T.K., Roberts, C., Jozifkova, E., Lhota, S., Valentova, J., & Flegr, J. (2008). He sees, she smells? Male and female reports of sensory reliance in mate choice and non-mate choice contexts. Personality and Individual Differences, 45(6), 565-570. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2008.06.019

Thornhill, R. & Gangestad, S.W. (1999). The scent of symmetry: A human sex pheromone that signals fitness? Evolution and Human Behavior, 20(3), 175-201. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(99)00005-7

Photo credits:

http://modernmancollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Woman-Smelling-Man.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01416/woman_man_1416378c.jpg

Can I get used to eating spicy food?

Dear Senserely Yours,

Every time I go out to eat with my barkada, we always get in conflict because of the food choice. I don’t like spicy food but they all do. Majority wins, right? But I still feel a consensus decision should be made. But I can’t be too selfish. So now, I’m thinking of trying to practice eating spicy food so that it would be totally cool for me for my barkada to order spicy food. Before I start my practice, I need to know if this will work first. So, will I be successful?

Love,

Percy

Can't Stop, Won't Stop?

Dear Tin,

        Eating is perhaps one of my favorite pastimes. I enjoy checking out new restaurants, going to food bazaars, and even discovering new finds in the food market. Based on my experiences, I have observed that the amount of food I’m capable of eating varies depending on the situation. For example, when dining in a restaurant, a dish or two could already make me feel full. In buffets, however, I think I am capable of eating a loooot more food than usual. Well, maybe a part of me wants to have a “sulit” dining experience for the price I pay, but I’m just curious if there are still other factors that make me want to eat more.

-Food Lover

Hey, Food Lover!

        Yay, finally! Thanks for this food-related post! I can see from your writing that we share the same love for food (cheers to that!).  Like you, going to buffets makes me want to sample everything. Who wouldn’t, right? It’s hard to stop eating when you have a lot of options to choose from. Out of curiosity, I’ve done quite a bit of reading on this and here are the things which I found out.

        On top of the reasons on why we have the tendency to overeat is the variety of food. Sensory-specific satiety is the change in preference for eaten versus uneaten food (Remick, Polivy & Pliner, 2009). This also applies to foods with similar qualities, such as taste and texture. Experiments show that there is a significant decline in the participants’ ratings for food which they have already eaten as compared to new ones (Raynor and Epstein, as cited in Remick et al., 2009). Interestingly, even the addition of condiments to a previously eaten food could increase one’s consumption (Brondel et al., 2009). It was observed that the participants who have already stopped eating fries began eating again when they were given ketchup and mayonnaise.

        Researchers emphasize that sensory-specific satiety has an effect on appetite and not on hunger; they point out that hunger leads a person to eat but one’s eating only stops when the appetite is satiated (Remick et al., 2009). Personally, I’ve noticed how my breakfast meal influences my food consumption. For example, eating oatmeal is very different from having a choice of spam, eggs, and fruits. I feel like I eat less and finish faster when I am only given oatmeal. Since the other breakfast choice offers more food, I will still crave for more unless I have already eaten each food to a certain point. Eating too much of something (no matter how much you like it) will eventually give you that nakakasawa feeling. On the other hand, if you’re wondering why your tummy never runs out of space for dessert (even when you know you’re full!), then think of how the said mechanism works on your appetite. 

        When we think of a certain food, we immediately imagine the taste that we associate with it. But aside from taste itself, there are also other factors influencing our sensation and perception of food. We’re sometimes not consciously aware of how the smell of the food influences us, except perhaps when we have colds and we could hardly taste what we’re eating. In that case, we realize the link between these two senses. What we see also affects our appetite. No wonder that food styling has been given more and more attention (and the so-called food porn sites are so popular). The variety of food in buffets, together with its appealing presentation, is definitely tempting. When it comes to visual cues, however, the dessert section draws me the most, and maybe that’s because the color combinations are a feast to the eye.

        For the diet-conscious, it is wise to avoid the wide selection of food choices in a meal. But other than that, it has also been observed that eating with a group also increases food consumption (Remick et al., 2009). This is because as the number of people increases, then the number of dishes available is also likely to increase (unless you choose to order a separate plate and opt not to share!). Well, the second one seems a bit difficult to avoid since eating is considered a social activity. But anyway, I hope you got something from my reply. PS: Feel free to share your weekend food finds, enjoy eating (but stay healthy)! 

Senserely yours,

Tin

References:

Brondel, L., Romer, M., Van Wymelbeke, V., Pineau, N., Jiang, T., Hanus, C., & Rigaud, D. (2009). Variety enhances food intake in humans: role of sensory-specific satiety. Physiology & behavior, 97(1), 44-51.

Remick, A. K., Polivy, J., & Pliner, P. (2009). Internal and external moderators of the effect of variety on food intake. Psychological bulletin, 135(3), 434.

Photo credits:

http://countrytonitepf.com/pigeon-forge-buffet-number-one-cure-for-hunger-in-the-smokies/

Memories lingering...

Dear V,

I entered this particular shop in a mall yesterday that I had never entered before. I immediately had this weird lingering feeling of missing someone. I smell this weird blend of chamomile laced with hints of lilac and it made me stop for awhile. Memories of time with my first puppy crush in the meadows near our house when I was a kid rushed all of a sudden. This was a very long time ago and I can't help but miss those innocent moments. What's up with me?

- Doug

Yow Doug!

Wow! Good for you for having a meadow that has chamomile and lilac growing in it near your place!In any case, we've all experienced this at some point in our lifes -different smells whisking us away to re-live our past. What you really need to ask is why does this actually happen?

Smell is one of the oldest most primal of our senses. Smell is perhaps the sense we are least used to talking about. We are good at describing how things look or sound, but with smells we are reduced to labelling them according to things they are associated with like how you desribed the scent you smelled.

Anyways, we possess olfactory bulbs and when we smell something, the odorants stimulate olfactory receptor cells. These receptor cells are fascinating because they have different affinities for a wide range of odorants.

The axons from these receptor cells converge in the olfactory bulb, which forms the olfactory tract and converges in the piriform cortex.The olfactory tract also terminates in the medial amygdala and the entorhinal cortex.

The medial amygdala is involved in emotional learning which is responsible for pairing events with emotions. This is particularly important in social functions such as mating. While the entorhinal cortex is involved in memory. The amygdala also has a direct connection to the mammillary bodies, a region of the hypothalamus involved in recognition memory. Olfactory neurons are unmyelinated which means that smell is our slowest sense.

Interestingly, olfactory receptors are also our only sensory receptors exposed to the environment. This suggests their direct importance in the brain's coding of memories from our experiences and emotions.

With this in mind, it makes sense- the odorants in the shop matched those of your meadow's, sending the same signals via the same receptor cells to brain areas involved in memory and emotion which triggers that particularly cheezy and fond memory of yours.

We call this the "Proustian phenomenon" after French writer Marcel Proust, whose novel À la recherche du temps perdu depicts a character pining over his childhood after smelling a familiar tea-soaked madeleine biscuit.

Senseryly yours,

V

References:

Rabin, M., & Cain, W. (1984). Odor recognition: Familiarity, identifiability, and encoding consistency. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10 (2), 316-325 DOI: 10.1037/0278-7393.10.2.316

Chu, S., & Downes, J. J. (2000). Odour-evoked autobiographical memories: Psychological investigations of proustian phenomena. Chemical Senses, 25(1), 111-116. doi: 10.1093/chemse/25.1.111

Photo Credits:
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Love Is A Sweet Treat

Dear Yana,

                I love reading books and have watched a thousand movies, and I often come across metaphors such as “love is sweet” or “bitter jealousy”. As a literature student, I became curious as to how these metaphors came about – how bodily sensations can be connected to abstract concepts such as love and jealousy. I came across your blog of Psychology students taking up Sensation and Perception, and I decided to put forward my question in the hopes that you will be able to provide me with the answer.

                I am very interested to know how these metaphors came about, and if there is truth behind love being sweet or jealousy being bitter or sour. Finding the answers to these will help me enrich my experience as a Literature student.

                Thank you very much!

Senserely yours,

I’m the Juliet to your Romeo

Dear I’m the Juliet to your Romeo,

Thank you for taking your time to write to us here at Senserely yours! You’re right, we are a group of Psychology students taking up a Sensation and Perception course. Fortunately, I think I’ll be able (hopefully!) to provide you the answers that you need :)

         Despite the fact that decades of research had been allotted to demonstrate that emotions does influence social perception (Forgas, 2000 as cited in Chan, tong, Tan, & Koh, 2013), far less is known about hoe emotions affect basic, low-level sensory perceptions, such as the one you mentioned earlier (e.g., sweet, bitter/sour). However, it is not uncommon that we encounter several references of emotion to bodily sensations. I have personally encountered such metaphors when I read books, watch movies, even listening to songs. In fact, Chan, Tong, Tan, & Koh (2013) showed that the “love is sweet” metaphor is prevalent in romantically endearing terms (e.g., “sweetheart”), song titles, and literature (e.g., Romeo and Juliet’s “...my sweet love”). Likewise, “jealousy is sour/bitter” metaphor can be found in Chinese (Yu, 1998 as cited in Chan et al., 2013) and old German (The equivalent of jealousy is “Eifersucht” which literally means bitter-sickness). Here in our own country, especially among youth, feelings of “bitterness” is connected to negative emotions or jealousy (most often in a romantic context).

In addition to those you have mentioned, there have also been several studies showing how embodied cognition is applied in metaphors. Chan, Tong, Tan, & Koh (2013) briefly outlined these studies -  the association of importance to heaviness (e.g., “this issue carries some weight”), affection to physical warmth (“he’s acting cold toward me”), happiness is up (“his spirits lifted”), power is up (“acting high and mighty”), and anger is heat (“he is being hot-headed”).

A study done by Chan, Tong, Tan, & Koh (2013) showed that induced love led to sweeter ratings of a candy, a chocolate, and even bland distilled water, whereas induced jealousy failed to induce higher sour or bitter ratings. Additionally, participants induced to feel love produced higher ratings of sweetness than those induced to feel happy. In other words, love does “tastes” sweet, although jealousy does not exactly “taste” sour or bitter, despite what its metaphorical associations might suggest.

What could account for the love-sweetness relationship? Chan, tong, Tan, & Koh (2013) outlined several possible explanations derived from previous studies. One explanation pertains to the application of the perceptual symbol system (PSS) theory (Barsalou, 1999), which predicts that reexperiences of particular psychological states (e.g, love) can elicit physical sensations (e.g., sweetness) if these sensations were encoded in modal nodes during past psychological experiences. Big words, right? What this simply means is that repeated association due to past experiences between psychological experiences and physical sensations can account for the effect (e.g., feelings of social exclusion have been found to lead to lower ratings of room temperature, “feeling cold and lonely”). Another explanation is through amodal semantic priming. Lee and Schwarz (2012 as cited in Chan et al., 2013) showed that the embodied effect of fishiness and social suspicion was mediated by semantic associations. These associations could be acquired through embodiment, which goes back to the primary thesis of Lakoff & Johnson’s  (1987, 1999 as cited in Chan et al., 2013) work – bodily metaphors formed from repeated pairings of abstract psychological states and concrete physical sensations. The third explanation refers to what is called neural coactivation or mediation by the neural reward circuitry shared between love experiences and sweet sensations. Activity in the anterior cingulated cortex is associated with both visual presentation os one’s romantic partner (Bartels & Zeki, 2000) and when tasting sugar (De Araujo et al., 2003). It is therefore possible that when one experiences love, the anterior cingulated cortex would activate representations associated with sweetness, thereby eliciting sweetness sensations even without actual sweetness input from an external source (Chan, Tong, Tan, & Koh, 2013).

We move from these explanations of embodied metaphors to cover a larger scope about the topic. Consider the expression, “Sweet victory” (achievement is sweet). Chan, Tong, Tan, & Koh (2013) emphasized that unless there is a repeated history of consuming sweet products as one experiences accomplishments, the embodiment of achievement in sweet taste should be unlikely. Without evidence of such historical pairings, perhaps these findings consistent with the metaphor should be interpreted as semantic priming effects (Lee & Schwarz, 2012), rather than being embodied in the sense of being based on actual physical-psychological grounding. In other words, to be able to claim that a metaphor is embodied, various sources of evidence need to be considered side by side, like smantic activations (Lee & Schwarz, 2012), the involvement of neural systems (Anderson, 2010), and especially, possible ontological groundings (Chan, Tong, Tan, & Koh, 2013).

Meanwhile, the inability of induced jealousy to create sensations of sourness or bitterness implies several possible explanations. Chan, Tong, Tan, & Koh (2013) forwarded that their measures for sourness or bitterness were not sensitive enough, or that their participants were generally bad at judging sourness and bitterness. However, this seems unlikely because all taste measures were administered in the same way. Second, although research has shown that people are actually much more sensitive to sour- and bitter-tasting substances than sweet-tasting substances (Stevens, 1996 as cited in Chan et al., 2013), results were still significant for the love condition but not for the jealousy condition. The null effect of jealousy on sour or bitterness is consistent with the lack of theoretically viable embodied connections between jealousy and these tastes (Chan, Tong, Tan, & Koh, 2013). Further evidence needs to be forwarded to identify the co-occurences between experiences of jealousy and tasting bitterness or sourness. From these results, it is concluded not to assume that all bodily metaphors are necessarily embodied (Casasanto, 2009; Ijzerman & Koole, 2011 as cited in Chan et al., 2013).

In conclusion, some metaphors have an embodied basis and also produce metaphor-consistent effects, such as “love is sweet”. Meanwhile, some bodily metaphors may not produce effects that are inconsistent with what they represent, such as “jealousy is bitter/sour”. Perhaps, as Chan et al. (2013) suppose, these metaphors (e.g, “jealousy is sour/bitter”) are mapped because of structural similarities between source and target domains (e.g., both are negatively valenced), or that they share similar consequences (e.g., sour acids are corrosive to the body, just as jealousy is corrosive to a relationship; jealousy is poisonous; just as bitter foods indicate possible toxins). Other examples such as “betrayal is a bitter pill” and “spice up your sex life” may make us wonder if it leads to biased perceptions of the sensations they represent. We are also not sure if these metaphors have an embodied basis, yet the metaphor still stands in how it is able to associate these emotions with certain tastes. Perhaps future research can explore these possibilities as we hope for more exciting discoveries J I hope that I was able to answer your question.

Senserely yours,

Yana



References
Chan, K., Tong, E.W., Tan, D.H., & Koh, A.Q. (2013). What do love and jealousy taste like?. Emotion, 13(6), 1142-1149. doi:10.1037/a0033758