6 - Scent of a woman: the mediation of smell and automatic analysis of extended senses

Summary

It is five years since my last return to England: During the first years I could not endure my wife or children in my presence, the very smell of them was intolerable.

(Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, my emphasis)

From the mouse’s nose to Borges’s sculpture

The above quotation from Gulliver’s Travels is funny as it shockingly violates our cultural norms. Swift, known for his wicked sense of humor, has touched on a sensitive point. How can the smell of a beloved one be so intolerable?

For the cultural psychologist there is no greater pleasure than in showing how “natural” biological psychological processes are mediated despite their nonmediated and “natural” appearance. In this context, smell is of specific interest as it is a common belief that we have a poor sense of smell, attributed mostly to our evolutionary heritage, and that smell is such a basic perception that the role of mediation is minimal if any.