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Updated: Dec 23, 2025
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Real-time In Vitro Monitoring of Odorant Receptor Activation by an Odorant in the Vapor Phase
Published on: April 23, 2019
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Are humans constantly but subconsciously smelling themselves?
Ofer Perl1, Eva Mishor1, Aharon Ravia1
1Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Summary
Humans frequently touch their faces, potentially to unconsciously smell themselves. This prevalent self-smelling behavior, though largely unstudied, warrants further investigation in human social olfaction.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral Science
- Neuroscience
- Olfactory Communication
Background:
- Primates, including humans, exhibit high-frequency self-face-touching.
- The functional purpose of self-face-touching remains largely unexplained.
- Self-smelling is a prevalent human behavior, yet it is underrepresented in scientific literature.
Purpose of the Study:
- To hypothesize that self-face-touching serves the function of self-smelling.
- To investigate the prevalence and potential unconscious nature of human self-smelling.
- To highlight the paradox of a common behavior being overlooked in medical and psychological research.
Main Methods:
- Hybrid review of existing data on self-face-touching.
- Analysis of a study linking self-face-touching to olfactory cues (nasal inhalation, odorant tainting).
- Online self-report questionnaire to assess conscious self-smelling behavior.
Main Results:
- Evidence suggests a link between self-face-touching and olfactory processing.
- Approximately 94% of surveyed individuals reported engaging in self-smelling.
- Self-smelling is a common behavior, yet it receives minimal attention in scientific discourse.
Conclusions:
- Self-face-touching may be an unconscious form of self-smelling.
- Conscious self-smelling is highly prevalent among humans.
- Human self-smelling should be formally investigated within the field of human social olfaction.
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