Richardson J T, Zucco G M
Psychol Bull. 1989 May;105(3):352-60. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.105.3.352.
Examines research in cognitive psychology, which has in the past paid little attention to the olfactory modality. But there is now a significant body of literature on the role of the olfactory system in memory and cognition. Human beings possess an excellent ability to detect and discriminate odors, but they typically have great difficulty in identifying particular odorants. This results partly from the use of an improverished and idiosyncratic language to describe olfactory experiences, which are normally encoded either in a rudimentary sensory form or as part of a complex but highly specific biographical episode. Consequently, linguistic processes play only a very limited role in olfactory processing, whereas hedonic factors seem to be of considerable importance.
考察认知心理学领域的研究，该领域过去很少关注嗅觉模态。但现在有大量关于嗅觉系统在记忆和认知中作用的文献。人类具有出色的气味检测和辨别能力，但通常很难识别特定的气味物质。部分原因在于使用了匮乏且独特的语言来描述嗅觉体验，这些体验通常以基本的感官形式编码，或者作为复杂但高度特定的个人经历的一部分。因此，语言过程在嗅觉处理中仅起非常有限的作用，而享乐因素似乎相当重要。
