Simon Niedenthal, Malmö university visits and presents his talk from his Professor promotion

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Professor Simon Niedenthal was recently promoted to Professor of Interaction Design. He is a long time collaborator with our Lab and together we have developed much of our smell training and testing equipment.

In his presentation, Simon spoke about the current and past state of olfaction in interactive entertainment, such as movies and games, and the challenges of olfactory interaction.

Simon presents

Simon has been vital for the development of Nosewise (Olfactory display for VR) and Exerscent (Smell identification game for smell-training and testing).

Nosewise demonstration

 

Murathan’s presents at ECRO symposium

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Murathan Kurfali held a presentation titled Investigating the relation between Semantic Space and Olfactory Perceptions using Language Models. He was choosen to be part of the Young Investigators symposium.

”In this presentation, Murathan explored how various language models, including ChatGPT, capture olfactory-semantic relationships. Findings reveal that large language models like ChatGPT tend to resemble human imagination of odors rather than human odor perception. This research not only sheds light on the capabilities of Natural Language Processing in understanding olfaction but also highlights the potential use of AI models as valuable resources for researchers and practitioners in the field of olfaction.”

– Summary of abstract by ChatGPT-3.5

The abstract for the talk can be found here: https://coms.events/ecro2023/data/abstracts/en/abstract_0151.html

Jonas Olofsson releases a new book – ”Det underskattade sinnet”!

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The book is in Swedish,  the title translated is ”The underrated sense – About man’s unknown ability to perceive smells”. It popularizes our understanding of, and the remarkable aspects, of the human sense of smell.

Link to Publisher: https://www.nok.se/

From the release of ”Det underskattade sinnet”

SCI-LAB had its annual Retreat and Lab workshop

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Every year SCI-LAB take a retreat to plan and workshop the Lab’s progress. Previous retreats have focused on developing different skills and the Lab’s progress towards its targeets.

This year marked five years since the SCI-LAB was formed, and we focused on evaluating the Lab’s achievements during this time and to formulate new targets for the next five years!

Murathan Karfali explained chatGPT and AI at the Psychology department´s conference!

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The Department of Psychology at Stockholm University had a two-day conference where AI was one of the themes.

Murathan introduced the AI seminar with his talk on What is ChatGPT!

 

Jonas Olofsson keynote speaker at Pangborn conference

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Jonas Olofsson was invited as keynote speaker to the annual Pangborn Sensory Science Symposium.

The title of his keynote was Using language to understand the sense of smell.

Marta Zakrzewska awarded best PhD thesis award!

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Marta Zakrzewska, who defended her PhD thesis last year, was selected for the best PhD thesis award at the Department of Psychology. Marta is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Karolinska Institute and the lab of professor Mats J. Olsson. Congratulations Marta!

SCI-lab hosts the Olfactus conference at Stockholm University

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The Olfactus 2023 conference was hosted by the SCI-lab and our colleagues at the Gösta Ekman Laboratory. In this intensive 1-day conference, 43 participants attended. There were 17 talks, mostly by junior researchers and students, on a wide variety of chemical senses research topics. Some pictures from the event are available on the Gösta Ekman Laboratory facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/gelstockholm

Jonas Olofsson awarded AChemS Young Investigator Award!

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The PI of the SCI-lab, Jonas Olofsson was awarded the AChemS Young Investigator Award for Research in Olfaction or Nasal Chemoreception by the Association for Chemoreception Sciences! The award is given to “an outstanding junior scientist whose research record should provide evidence of excellence and contributions that have had or are likely to have a major impact on research in the field of olfaction”. Jonas would like to thank all members of the SCI-lab, past and present for their excellent research contributions.

New article: Odor identification errors reveal cognitive aspects of age-associated smell loss

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New SCI-Lab paper! Rohan Rajs work explains odor identification results with help from language models and human estimations. This work, which was recently published in Cognition, might help developing better odor assessments to detect early stage dementia.

Find ”Odor identification errors reveal cognitive aspects of age-associated smell loss” here.