Marta Zakrzewska’s award symposium

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On 21 November 2025, at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, we held a symposium celebrating our former PhD student Mart Zakrzewska.

The event, titled “The Psychology of Disease,” explored how illness shapes thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and social interactions.

The programme featured talks on:

  • Why some individuals react strongly to everyday sensory stimulation (Linus Andersson)

  • The different faces of feeling sick (Julie Lasselin)

  • Sex differences in pathogen disgust from an evolutionary perspective (Marco Tullio Liuzza)

  • How olfaction relates to social attitudes and prejudice (Marta Zakrzewska)

The symposium concluded with the award ceremony of the 2024 Young Researcher in Psychology Prize.

Marta’s award symposium

 

Olfactus 2026 — Hosted by Sci-Lab and the Perception & Psychophysics Division

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The 2026 Olfactus Conference—a full day of talks and discussions led by Swedish olfactory and chemosensory researchers—will be hosted by Sci-Lab and the Division of Perception & Psychophysics.

Planning is underway, and more information will be shared as it becomes available.

 

 

New paper out: Olfactory spatial memory: a systematic review and meta-analysis

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Recently our team published a new paper titled “Olfactory spatial memory: a systematic review and meta-analysis”  in Scientific Reports. In the article, we summarized the current state of knowledge on olfactory spatial memory in humans.

Four key results emerged:

  • First, odors can be used as landmarks in the formation of neuro-cognitive maps in both sensory and cognitive brain areas, providing a foundation for spatial memory and navigation abilities.
  • Second, the human ability to memorize locations of odors, especially cues signaling high-calorie food, is indicative of its presumed evolutionary role in foraging.
  • Third, odor-recognition and odor-context-place association might stem from overlapping memory processes.
  • Fourth, olfactory targeted training enhances olfactory spatial memory and shows transfer to other modalities and cognitive domains.

To find out more, go to:

Szychowska, M., Olofsson, J.K. & Cedres, N. Olfactory spatial memory: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sci Rep 15, 38469 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-25503-5

New Research Assistant

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Billy joins us, working as a research assistant to help with running Thomas Hörberg’s project: ”Building a cross-cultural semantic framework for odor vocabularies.” Billy has a PhD in psychology from Stockholm University, on the neural correlates of consciousness in hearing, using EEG.