Body cognitions: the sense of smell and the experience of flavor

Abstract

For a long time considered one of the minor and weakest senses in human animals, smell actually plays a far from marginal function in our mode of existence in socio-emotional behaviors, in the evocation of memories and in non-verbal communication, and not least in our daily life especially for its role in the perception of food flavour. Thanks to the progress that research has achieved in recent decades, to the point of justifying among other things the birth of a new scientific enterprise known as neurogastronomy, the sense of smell, and in particular the retronasal smell, is even configured as one of our most species-specific abilities, to which we owe moreover, one of the greatest joys in life: the conscious pleasure of savoring and appreciating food and drink. Starting from this assumption, the aim of this essay is therefore to show to what extent an experience rooted in the body as the perception of flavour is attributable to the species-specific characteristics developed by the human sense of smell during evolution, configuring itself as a complex form of embodied cognition whose possibilities depend as much on the biological structure as on the actual use we make of this extraordinary bodily device.

Keywords: Odors, Retronasal Smell. Flavour Perception. Taste. Neurogastronomy. Anosmia. Ageusia.