The study has shown that scents help children to make decisions,

140 children aged 3 to 11 years participated in the study conducted by the scientists of Monell Center. The volunteers were given three seconds to smell one of the three scents (rose, fish or neutral). After that, two photos of the same person were demonstrated, Psych Central reports.

The face on the first photo expressed joy and the second one - disgust. The participants were requested to choose one of the photos. Then the children evaluated the scents. The study has found that volunteers under the age of 5 years, as a rule, choose a joyful person, regardless of smell and how pleasant the person seemed to them.

At the same time these smells influenced on the decisions of children aged 5 years and older. Apparently, these participants attributed olfactory and visual signals. They often choose a happy face when they had previously smelt a pleasant scent and vice versa. In the future the scientists plan to find out, whether the decisions of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) depend on scents.

Source: МEDdaily