As white noise is a mix of many different sound frequencies and white light is a mixture of different wavelengths, the olfactory White is a mixture of many different odorous substances.

In fact, the olfactory white key components are not in themselves, but the fact that there are many.

"The more compounds are in two different mixtures, the smell is more like each other, even though the blends do not contain elements in common," say the authors of the discovery.

White Odor

Almost any aroma from a mixture of compounds. Humans who try not mix according odors, for example, it is hard to mix with the coffee aroma of roses, but hardly differentiate the individual components of the mixtures. Quickly, smell your coffee cup and lists all the individual compounds that make up that characteristic smell roasting. Not so easy, huh?

An experiment was performed in which it was discovered that the more components carry a mixture is more difficult to distinguish. A four-component mixture is not at all like other mixture of four different components, while the smell of a mixture of 43-aa component strongly resembles another mixture of 43-different components.

The significance of the research results is that the target is a flavor distinct olfactory, triggered by specific compounds but not for the mixture of certain compounds. The key is that the compounds are all of the same intensity and covering the full range of human odors. That's why the smell of roses and coffee, despite being composed of many compounds are so caracterísricos: its compounds are mixed unevenly and cover a wide range of odors.

In other words, our brain processes odors as a unit, not as a mixture of compounds break down, analyze and put back together. If it did so, never qualify completely different mixtures of compounds with the same smell.

Of course all of you are asking now: What's that smell "blank olfactory"?. Unfortunately, the smell is so soft that defies description possible. Participants in the experiment it framed right in the middle of nice and edible.

According to the researchers, "The only way to appreciate the qualities of white olfactory smell"