Researchers have long believed that the most crucial factor in how we experience different smells is culturally determined.
That we simply learned to like chocolate and wrinkle our noses at sweat.
But a new research report from Karolinska Institutet and the University of Oxford states that in addition to individual experiences, it is chemistry, ie what the smell consists of, that determines how we experience it.
Cultural significance is scaled down
In the experiment, the researchers let 235 people from completely different environments, rank ten smells - from good to disgusting.
Some of the test subjects live in communities completely isolated from Western influences, while others live in big cities.
- Regardless of whether they live in the Thai jungle or in New York, cheese is perceived as disgusting and vanilla as pleasant, says Johan Lundström, odor researcher at Karolinska Institutet.
Is that a controversial result?
- It is controversial for half the research field, those who are strong supporters of the cultural.
And what we have really killed now is precisely that there are virtually no cultural aspects, says Johan Lundström.
Join the lab and watch the reporter test some of the worst odors - in the video.