Influence Of Smells.
Smells both good and bad has a massive impact in our lives, whether we realize it or not we are all being influenced by smell all the time.
Memory
Familiar smells can influence what we memories we remember and when, In fact our sense of smell has a stronger connection to our memory than your vision. Smelling a distinctive scent we recognize it can trigger past memories. Research suggests memories brought on by smells invoke a stronger emotional response to the memory and tend to be more accurate and clearer.Smell is so strongly connected to memory that it is used in therapy session to recover lost memories.
Emotions
Smells have the power to affect our moods. Good smells help us to feel calm, relaxed and happy with bad smells have the complete opposite effect. Smell can have such a calming and relaxing influence that places of stress such as hospitals scent there waiting rooms to calm the visitors who are understandably quite anxious.Smells even influence how we feel about other people, with people with a nice relaxing scent being considered more trust worthy and like-able over those with a bad or too strong scent.
Time
Different smells have no effect of time whatsoever; time is a constant however smells do affect how we perceive time. Pleasurable smells such as the aroma of coffee can decrease our perception of time making time feel like it’s passing by a lot faster. Though this is not always the case some pleasurable smells such as the smell of baby powder will actually increase the perception of time.Not only can smells change how we perceive time it also influence where we spend our time, because of the pleasant smell and the decreased perception of time we tend to spend more time in areas that smell good.
Spending
Shops impalement the use scents to influence us to purchase their product. By making their store smell good and relaxing they are causing shoppers to spend more time in the store, The relaxed and happy emotion the scent is evoking in the shopper loses the grip over their wallets as spending your hard earned money is both therapeutic but also stressful and the more relaxed a person is the more likely they are to spend. It’s one of the reasons online shopping is so popular because no one feels more relaxed when they are taking it easy in their own home.By scenting their products, giving them that new shoe or car smell they using smell to play on our emotions to increase how we feel about the product making us desire it more while also increasing our trust in the product. This is also purposely designed to make us spend money.
Focus and productivity
Smells can influence our productivity and how hard we work and it’s not just because we are spending more money.Similar to how smell can affect your perception of time, smells can also directly influence your visual perception and focus. The more focused and alert you are the harder you work that’s why smells are often used in work environments to not only increase productivity but to decrease the amount of errors made.