title: Olfactory Orientation and Navigation in Humans.
abstract: Although predicted by theory, there is no direct evidence that an animal can define an arbitrary location in space as a coordinate location on an odor grid. Here we show that humans can do so. Using a spatial match-to-sample procedure, humans were led to a random location within a room diffused with two odors. After brief sampling and spatial disorientation, they had to return to this location. Over three conditions, participants had access to different sensory stimuli: olfactory only, visual only, and a final control condition with no olfactory, visual, or auditory stimuli. Humans located the target with higher accuracy in the olfaction-only condition than in the control condition and showed higher accuracy than chance. Thus a mechanism long proposed for the homing pigeon, the ability to define a location on a map constructed from chemical stimuli, may also be a navigational mechanism used by humans.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Lucia F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Jacobs
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Arter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Frank J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Sulloway
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055696:Olfactory Perception; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D065854:Spatial Navigation / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult