Marta Zakrzewska, who recently graduated as a PhD from the lab and is now a postdoc at Karolinska Institute, found that body odor disgust sensitivity is associated with xenophobia across the world. This pre-registered research was recently published in Royal Society Open Science.
Jonas Olofsson has been invited as a keynote speaker at the Pangborn Sensory Symposium in Nantes, France (August 20-24).
Pangborn is an academic conference focusing on sensory science and consumer science (www.pangbornsymposium.com).
#Pangborn2023
”Nira Cedres’ paper; Subjective Impairments in Olfaction and Cognition Predict Dissociated Behavioral Outcomes, was highlighted as editor’s choice in the Journals of Gerontology” (link to paper)!
The study aimed to investigate the relationship and co-occurrence of self-rated subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and subjective olfactory impairment (SOI) and the results suggest that SOI and SCD occur independently and are associated with different cognitive and olfactory outcomes. The study highlights the need for further investigation into the underlying causes and the risk of future cognitive impairment. With a growing aging population, understanding the relationship between SCD and SOI is crucial for early detection and intervention of cognitive decline and dementia.
We were visited by documentary filmmaker Cosima Dannoritzer, as part of the production of her new project involving smell and memory.
Maria Larsson, head of Perception and Psychophysics, were interviewed for the documentary and SCI-LAB made its contribution to the segment. We hope you willl enjoy the documentary when it is released some time this summer!
We will announce when it is out in a new update.
Our recently published paper on our inhouse developed handheld olfactometer for use with VR has gained interest from several Swedish media sources.
We have been featured on Swedish TV, newspaper and Radio. Below you can find links to our appearances (Swedish):
SVT, Swedish public television: svt.se and svt.se
TV4 news: tv4play.se
P3 spel, Swedish public Radio: sverigesradio.se
Dagens nyheter, newspaper: dn.se
Here you can find our article in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies for more information: A graspable olfactory display for virtual reality
We have an article out in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies on our inhouse developed VR-compatible olfactometer (smell presenter).
This device allows for easier and robust odor presentation in VR-based environments. It can be used for research, smell training, wine tasting and gaming, as it allows intractions with odor-objects ingame.
Link to the article: A graspable olfactory display for virtual reality
In our new SCI-LAB study, published in Neuropsychologia, Georgios Menelaou found that age-related smell changes are associated with changes in parts of the hippocampus brain region – supporting the notion that smell is a window into the aging brain: https://www.sciencedirect.com
Marta Zakrzewska defended har PhD thesis Olfaction and Prejudice: The role of body odor disgust sensitivity and disease avoidance in understanding social attitudes today with flying colors!
Her aim was to investigate the connection between olfaction, odor disgust, and social attitudes from the perspective of disease avoidance.
You can find the thesis here.
On Thursday, June 2, Marta Zakrzewska nailed her PhD thesis to the wall of the Psychology department; a long-standing tradition that symbolizes that the thesis is finalized and publicly available. Martas public defense is planned for August 25 at Stockholm University. Information about the defense seminar, and the thesis, can be found here: https://www.su.se/department-of-psychology/calendar/dissertation-olfaction-and-prejudice-1.614672
During the pandemic, Jonas and Teodor participated in a large-scale collaboration to study how to communicate effectively about ”social distancing”. This paper, which includes data from 89 countries and over 25k participants, is now published in PNAS: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2111091119