Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- A Tribute to Edmond Roudnitska
- OLFACTION, TASTE, AND COGNITION
- Section 1 A Specific Type of Cognition
- Section 2 Knowledge and Languages
- Section 3 Emotion
- 8 Acquisition and Activation of Odor Hedonics in Everyday Situations: Conditioning and Priming Studies
- 9 Is There a Hedonic Dimension to Odors?
- 10 Influences of Odors on Mood and Affective Cognition
- 11 Assessing Putative Human Pheromones
- 12 Neural Correlates of Emotion Perception: From Faces to Taste
- Section 4 Memory
- Section 5 Neural Bases
- Section 6 Individual Variations
- Index
- References
11 - Assessing Putative Human Pheromones
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- A Tribute to Edmond Roudnitska
- OLFACTION, TASTE, AND COGNITION
- Section 1 A Specific Type of Cognition
- Section 2 Knowledge and Languages
- Section 3 Emotion
- 8 Acquisition and Activation of Odor Hedonics in Everyday Situations: Conditioning and Priming Studies
- 9 Is There a Hedonic Dimension to Odors?
- 10 Influences of Odors on Mood and Affective Cognition
- 11 Assessing Putative Human Pheromones
- 12 Neural Correlates of Emotion Perception: From Faces to Taste
- Section 4 Memory
- Section 5 Neural Bases
- Section 6 Individual Variations
- Index
- References
Summary
Whether or not human pheromones exist and how they might influence human physiology and behavior have been debated for decades; for a review, see Preti and Wysocki (1999). In this chapter, we present the concepts and data that are shaping our understanding of pheromones and pheromone-like effects in humans and other species. This will include the semantic issues associated with use of the term “pheromone” and descriptions of experiments designed to determine the psychological effects of two putative human pheromones. The expectation that human pheromones can consistently elicit stereotyped behavior is unrealistic. We argue that it is more likely that airborne signals are context-dependent and have more general, modulatory effects that can best be captured conceptually in terms of “modulatory pheromones” or “social chemosignals” (McClintock, 2000). Research with humans also presents a unique opportunity to consider the functional role of an awareness or conscious experience of pheromones and social chemosignals, whereas animal research is limited to studies of overt behavior.
Definition of “Pheromone”
According to the classic definition (Karlson and Lüscher, 1959), pheromones are airborne chemical signals emitted by an individual that trigger specific neuroendocrine, behavioral, or developmental responses in other individuals of the same species. Early pheromone research began with insects (Karlson and Butenandt, 1959), and the term “pheromone” was coined to designate a group of externally released “active substances” that triggered specific behavioral responses and were similar to, but could not be called, hormones. An example is bombykol, a substance emitted by female silkworm moths.
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- Olfaction, Taste, and Cognition , pp. 178 - 195Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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