# Human pairs show collective benefit in olfactory perception despite individual differences and verbal limits

## TL;DR

People can improve their sense of smell when working together, even with differences in perception and limited verbal communication.

## Contribution

Demonstrates collective olfactory benefit through verbal collaboration, challenging the belief that smell is resistant to verbal communication.

## Key findings

- Human pairs outperform individuals in olfactory tasks when collaborating.
- Collective benefit increases with perceptual similarity between pair members.
- Verbal confidence helps resolve perceptual conflicts, but excessive verbalization hinders odor identification.

## Abstract

Olfaction is a limit case for human communication. Not only does genetic, personal, and cultural diversity make us smell things differently, but perceptual and neurological factors are meant to make it challenging to verbalize our olfactory experiences, besides the affective value that they have for us. Here, we demonstrate that people still achieve a collective benefit in olfactory tasks when allowed to talk to each other, like the benefits only seen in vision and audition. We measured people’s individual smell abilities using a standard clinical test and brought them back after 4 weeks in pairs with matching abilities, others with different ones. We asked everyone to perform discrimination and identification olfactory tasks again, but this time, after giving their own answers, they had to discuss and agree on a joint answer. As in vision, pairs matched in abilities performed better than the best of the two individuals. This joint benefit in olfactory performance overturns the long-held belief that smell resists verbal scaffolding.

•Human pairs exceed the average individual in olfactory perceptual performance•Collective benefit scales with the pair’s similarity in perceptual ability•Pairs successfully resolve perceptual conflicts by sharing verbal confidence•Extensive verbalization impairs odor identification, reflecting lexical limits

Human pairs exceed the average individual in olfactory perceptual performance

Collective benefit scales with the pair’s similarity in perceptual ability

Pairs successfully resolve perceptual conflicts by sharing verbal confidence

Extensive verbalization impairs odor identification, reflecting lexical limits

Neuroscience; sensory neuroscience