http://www.frontiersin.org/neuroanatomy/.../022.2009/

--More about the problems with product promotion when the "pheromones" are marketed as effecting the non-functional human VNO.

[FONT=Arial][/FONT]James V. Kohl
http://www.pheromones.com

Ya know, when we go to get glasses or get a hearing test we see those charts on the wall detailing all the little parts of the eye or ear. It ocurs to me that unless we have serious problems with our sense of smell or perhaps taste, the average person would never see a diagram detailing the inner working of the nose. Sinuses maybe if we have problems there, the structure of the nose if we consider cosmetic surgery or have an injury, but never how the nose actually smells things. It's surely as complicated and unique as telling red from square or the sound of a bad muffler from the rustle of leaves.

There are parallels between the olfactory system and immune system. Both detect self/non-self differences in genetic make-up that people commonly refer to as "tissue type." Non-olfactory sensory input from the social environment cannot convey the same type of message; we can't see differences in tissue type. This means that no matter how often we are told that humans are primarily visual creatures, we cannot be. Our response to visual input must be conditioned by its pairing with olfactory input. A recent article on congenital blindness helps to detail this.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19553...d_RVDocSum

or see the media representation:
http://spectrum.mit.edu/issue/2009-fall/theory-of-mind/
"In a study comparing congenitally blind adults to their sighted counterparts, Saxe instead found that the theory-of-mind mechanisms in these subjects was “indistinguishable. The social brain network evolves perfectly fine in the absence of vision.”

(10-08-2009 5:51 PM)renny Wrote:  ... the average person would never see a diagram detailing the inner working of the nose.
...It's surely as complicated and unique as telling red from square or the sound of a bad muffler from the rustle of leaves.