The Accuracy, Consistency, and Speed of Odor and Picture Naming

Odor identification, the ability to select the correct odor from a list of names, is a common method of measuring sense of smell in humans. Performance on such tasks depends upon a variety of factors, but can be quite good. On the other hand, people find it very difficult to generate names for odors in the absence of contextual cues. Picture identification and naming, by contrast, are much easier. Two questions remain about odor naming: (1) Do people attempt to name odors, even when they are unfamiliar or uncommon, and are they consistent in naming? and (2) What is the latency to name odors compared to pictures? The current study examined people's ability and attempts to name common and uncommon odors and pictures, as well as the speed and consistency (some stimuli were presented twice) of their responses. Participants provided names for most odors and pictures, even though some were uncommon. Participants were able to name less than half of the common odors accurately, but provided names for almost all of the (even uncommon) pictures. Common pictures were named with perfect accuracy and consistency and in about a second, but naming of uncommon pictures and common and uncommon odors was not consistent and required several seconds. The results confirm and extend our understanding of the difficulty of naming odors, particularly relative to the ease of naming pictures. These results suggest that odor naming is a laborious process that may have little ecological value.