Cognitive Design

There have been many recent studies highlighting the important role of mirror neurons  in generating empathy. Now there is more evidence that chemosensory information may be key.  Chemosensory processing has to do with the sensing of chemicals through smell. Chemosensory ability is an important but often neglected sense from a design standpoint unless of course you design fragrances or foods.

 Finished reading a study on chemosensory abilities that demonstrates using brain scans that we can detect the chemicals associated with fear/anxiety even though the sweat given off is indistinguishable from the smell of other sweats, such as sport sweat. Induction of Empathy by the Smell of Anxiety finds:

In sum, the processing of chemosensory anxiety signals engages significantly more neuronal resources than the chemosensory processing of sport sweat. The odors were hardly detectable and the odors could not be differentiated regarding their intensity, pleasantness, unpleasantness or familiarity. Accordingly, it is concluded that the human brain automatically guides physiological adjustments to chemosensory anxiety signals, without being dependent on conscious mediation. However, in contrast to other modalities, the physiological adjustments in response to chemosensory anxiety signals seem to be mainly related to an automatic contagion of the feeling. In other words, smelling the feelings of others could be termed as an incorporation of the chemical expressions and thus the feelings of others.

For the cognitive designer the implications are clear, don’t forget the nose when you are creating artifacts meant to inspire empathy in users.