| 1. |
- Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando, et al.
(författare)
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The allocation of valenced concepts onto 3D space
- 2018
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Ingår i: Cognition & Emotion. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0269-9931 .- 1464-0600. ; 32:4, s. 709-718
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The valence-space metaphor research area investigates the metaphorical mapping of valenced concepts onto space. Research findings from this area indicate that positive, neutral, and negative concepts are associated with upward, midward, and downward locations, respectively, in the vertical plane. The same research area has also indicated that such concepts seem to have no preferential location on the horizontal plane. The approach-avoidance effect consists in decreasing the distance between positive stimuli and the body (i.e. approach) and increasing the distance between negative stimuli and the body (i.e. avoid). Thus, the valence-space metaphor accounts for the mapping of valenced concepts onto the vertical and horizontal planes, and the approach-avoidance effect accounts for the mapping of valenced concepts onto the depth plane. By using a cube conceived for the study of allocation of valenced concepts onto 3D space, we show in three studies that positive concepts are placed in upward locations and near the participants' body, negative concepts are placed in downward locations and far from the participants' body, and neutral concepts are placed in between these concepts in both planes.
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| 2. |
- Arshamian, Artin, et al.
(författare)
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A mammalian blood odor component serves as an approach-avoidance cue across phylum border - from flies to humans
- 2017
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Chemosignals are used by predators to localize prey and by prey to avoid predators. These cues vary between species, but the odor of blood seems to be an exception and suggests the presence of an evolutionarily conserved chemosensory cue within the blood odor mixture. A blood odor component, E2D, has been shown to trigger approach responses identical to those triggered by the full blood odor in mammalian carnivores and as such, is a key candidate as a food/alarm cue in blood. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we demonstrate that E2D holds the dual function of affecting both approach and avoidance behavior in a predator-prey predicted manner. E2D evokes approach responses in two taxonomically distant blood-seeking predators, Stable fly and Wolf, while evoking avoidance responses in the prey species Mouse. We extend this by demonstrating that this chemical cue is preserved in humans as well; E2D induces postural avoidance, increases physiological arousal, and enhances visual perception of affective stimuli. This is the first demonstration of a single chemical cue with the dual function of guiding both approach and avoidance in a predator-prey predicted manner across taxonomically distant species, as well as the first known chemosignal that affects both human and non-human animals alike.
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| 3. |
- Arshamian, Artin, et al.
(författare)
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Human sickness detection is not dependent on cultural experience
- 2021
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 0962-8452 .- 1471-2954. ; 288:1954
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Animals across phyla can detect early cues of infection in conspecifics, thereby reducing the risk of contamination. It is unknown, however, if humans can detect cues of sickness in people belonging to communities with whom they have limited or no experience. To test this, we presented Western faces photographed 2 h after the experimental induction of an acute immune response to one Western and five non-Western communities, including small-scale hunter-gatherer and large urban-dwelling communities. All communities could detect sick individuals. There were group differences in performance but Western participants, who observed faces from their own community, were not systematically better than all non-Western participants. At odds with the common belief that sickness detection of an out-group member should be biased to err on the side of caution, the majority of non-Western communities were unbiased. Our results show that subtle cues of a general immune response are recognized across cultures and may aid in detecting infectious threats.
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| 4. |
- Arshamian, Artin, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Olfactory awareness is positively associated to odour memory
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of Cognitive Psychology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2044-5911 .- 2044-592X. ; 23:2, s. 220-226
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We investigated the relationship between olfactory awareness and olfactory proficiency as determined by a set of standardised olfactory tasks. Olfactory awareness was indexed by scores in questionnaires focusing on odour interest, imagery ability, and prevalence of olfactory dreams. Nineteen subjects with high and 20 subjects with low odour awareness were presented with a set of standardised olfactory tasks: odour threshold, episodic odour recognition, and odour identification. The results showed that individuals with high odour awareness excelled in odour memory and identified more odours as compared with the low awareness group. Interestingly, odour naming ability exerted no influence on odour memory. Furthermore, high odour awareness was not related to a more sensitive olfactory sensory system as determined by olfactory threshold measurements.
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| 5. |
- Arshamian, Artin, 1979-
(författare)
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Olfactory Cognition : The Case of Olfactory Imagery
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The capacity to form olfactory images has received less attention than the formation of visual and auditory images. The evidence in favor of such ability is also inconsistent. This thesis explored some of the characteristics of olfactory imagery through three empirical studies. Study I investigated the effects of blocking spontaneous sniffing during olfactory imagery. The results indicated that the prevention of spontaneous sniffing reduced olfactory but not visual imagery capacity. Study II studied the relation between olfactory awareness (as indexed by olfactory dreams, olfactory imagery, and olfactory interest) and olfactory functions (i.e., odor threshold, episodic odor memory, and odor identification). The main findings were that compared to low, high olfactory awareness was associated with better episodic odor memory and identification, but not with higher olfactory sensitivity. Study III investigated the neural correlates of odor evoked autobiographical memories (OEAMs) as (a) a function of cue modality (i.e., odors and their verbal referents), and (b) a function of memory remoteness. The results from Study III showed that OEAMs activated regions generally associated with autobiographical memory. In addition, verbally cued OEAMs were associated with activity linked to olfactory imagery. Odor cues activated the limbic and temporal polar regions more than verbal cues; a result that may explain the phenomenological differences found between the cued memories. Moreover, OEAMs from the first decade of life were associated with higher activity in the secondary olfactory cortex, whereas memories from young adulthood were related to areas linked to semantic memory processing. Taken together these studies favor the notion of a human capacity to form olfactory images.
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| 6. |
- Arshamian, Artin, et al.
(författare)
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Respiration Modulates Olfactory Memory Consolidation in Humans
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Neuroscience. - 0270-6474 .- 1529-2401. ; 38:48, s. 10286-10294
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In mammals respiratory-locked hippocampal rhythms are implicated in the scaffolding and transfer of information between sensory and memory networks. These oscillations are entrained by nasal respiration and driven by the olfactory bulb. They then travel to the piriform cortex where they propagate further downstream to the hippocampus and modulate neural processes critical for memory formation. In humans, bypassing nasal airflow through mouth-breathing abolishes these rhythms and impacts encoding as well as recognition processes thereby reducing memory performance. It has been hypothesized that similar behavior should be observed for the consolidation process, the stage between encoding and recognition, were memory is reactivated and strengthened. However, direct evidence for such an effect is lacking in human and nonhuman animals. Here we tested this hypothesis by examining the effect of respiration on consolidation of episodic odor memory. In two separate sessions, female and male participants encoded odors followed by a 1 h awake resting consolidation phase where they either breathed solely through their nose or mouth. Immediately after the consolidation phase, memory for odors was tested. Recognition memory significantly increased during nasal respiration compared with mouth respiration during consolidation. These results provide the first evidence that respiration directly impacts consolidation of episodic events, and lends further support to the notion that core cognitive functions are modulated by the respiratory cycle.
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| 7. |
- Arshamian, Artin, et al.
(författare)
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Same same but different : the case of olfactory imagery
- 2014
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-1078. ; 5, s. UNSP 34-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the present work we present an overview of experimental findings corroborating olfactory imagery observations with the visual and auditory modalities. Overall, the results indicate that imagery of olfactory information share many features with those observed in the primary senses although some major differences are evident. One such difference pertains to the considerable individual differences observed, with the majority being unable to reproduce olfactory information in their mind. Here, we highlight factors that are positively related to an olfactory imagery capacity, such as semantic knowledge, perceptual experience, and olfactory interest that may serve as potential moderators of the large individual variation.
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| 8. |
- Arshamian, Artin, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Sniff Your Way to Clarity : The Case of Olfactory Imagery
- 2008
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Ingår i: CHEMOSENSORY PERCEPTION. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1936-5802 .- 1936-5810. ; 1:4, s. 242-246
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study addressed the effects of blocking spontaneous sniffing during olfactory imagery. A group of subjects (n=40) who scored high in olfactory focus and imagery ability rated the vividness in olfactory and visual imagery content under conditions of blocked sniffing, blocked vision, and a nonblocked control. The imagery stimuli consisted of 90 common words that could represent either an odor or a visual object. Blocked sniffing was expected to impair olfactory imagery vividness, but since visual imagery entails eye movements, which was not affected by the ""blocked vision"" manipulation, visual imagery ratings were effectively used as a placebo control. Confirming our hypotheses, the results showed that preventing sniffing resulted in a selectively poorer olfactory but not visual vividness, whereas blocked vision showed no effect on either the visual or olfactory vividness ratings. These observations confirm that sensorimotor activity is an important aspect for the quality of evoked olfactory images.
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| 9. |
- Arshamian, Artin, et al.
(författare)
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The functional neuroanatomy of odor evoked autobiographical memories cued by odors and words
- 2013
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Ingår i: Neuropsychologia. - : Elsevier BV. - 0028-3932 .- 1873-3514. ; 51:1, s. 123-131
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Behavioral evidence indicates that odor evoked autobiographical memories (OEAMs) are older, more emotional, less thought of and induce stronger time traveling characteristics than autobiographical memories (AMs) evoked by other modalities. The main aim of this study was to explore the neural correlates of AMs evoked by odors as a function of retrieval cue. Participants were screened for specific OEAMs and later presented with the odor cue and its verbal referent in an fMRI paradigm. Because the same OEAM was retrieved across both cue formats (odor and word), potential cue dependent brain activations were investigated. The overall results showed that odor and word cued OEAMs activated regions typically associated with recollection of autobiographical information. Although no odors were presented, a verbal cuing of the OEAMs activated areas associated with olfactory perception (e.g., piriform cortex). However, relative to word cuing, an odor cuing of OEAMs resulted in more activity in MTL regions such as the parahippocampus, and areas involved in visual vividness (e.g., occipital gyrus and precuneus). Furthermore, odor cues activated areas related to emotional processing, such as limbic and tempopolar regions significantly more. In contrast, word cues relative to odor cues recruited a more widespread and bilateral prefrontal activity. Hippocampus activity did not vary as function of the remoteness of the memory, but recollection of OEAMs from the 1st vs the 2nd decade of life showed specific activation in the right OFC, whereas the 2nd reflected a higher activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus.
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| 10. |
- Arshamian, Artin, et al.
(författare)
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The perception of odor pleasantness is shared across cultures
- 2022
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Ingår i: Current Biology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0960-9822 .- 1879-0445. ; 32:9, s. 2061-2066, e1-e3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Humans share sensory systems with a common anatomical blueprint, but individual sensory experience nevertheless varies. In olfaction, it is not known to what degree sensory perception, particularly the perception of odor pleasantness, is founded on universal principles dictated by culture or merely a matter of personal taste. To address this, we asked 225 individuals from 9 diverse nonwestern cultures—hunter-gatherer to urban dwelling—to rank the monomolecular odorants from most to least pleasant. Contrary to expectations, culture explained only 6% of the variance in pleasantness rankings, whereas individual variability or personal taste explained 54%. Importantly, there was substantial global consistency, with molecular identity explaining 41% of the variance in odor pleasantness rankings. Critically, these universal rankings were predicted by the physicochemical properties of out-of-sample molecules and out-of-sample pleasantness ratings given by a tenth group of western urban participants. Taken together, this shows human olfactory perception is strongly constrained by universal principles.
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