Author | Chen Zhihan Source | Science and Technology Publicity Cultural Resource Library Feeling inexplicably close to a person you have never met? Congratulations, you probably fell in love at first sight. What? Are you heterosexual and this person is the same gender as you? The

Author | Chen Zhihan Source | Technology Publicity and Cultural Resource Library

Feeling inexplicably close to a person you have never met? Congratulations, you probably fell in love at first sight.

what? Are you heterosexual and this person is the same gender as you? Then you probably just met a good friend who has the same "smell".

A study published in "Science Advances" on June 24 pointed out that smell may be the source of sudden good feelings...

Good friends smell similar

Close friends even have the same body odor? This is real.

This time, scientists invited 20 pairs of close friends to participate in the experiment. The subjects ranged in age from 22 to 39 years old and were of the same gender. They claimed that they had hit it off with their friends and had made up their minds to develop a friendship with each other before exchanging personal information. During the

experiment, the subjects strictly adhered to the "odor control" protocol. They stayed away from spicy food, away from pets or partners, and wore a clean cotton T-shirt and rested for 6 hours.

Subsequently, the T-shirts used as body odor carriers were collected by the researchers and sent to a " electronic nose " smart device for molecular composition analysis. At the same time, in order to ensure the accuracy of the results, the researchers also grouped T-shirts into two groups (maybe from close friends, or may be randomly assigned), and invited 25 additional volunteers to "artificially identify the taste."

results, both machines and humans, invariably and accurately identified: the smell of a close friend's T-shirt is very similar, while the smell of a stranger's T-shirt is "worlds apart."

If you want to make friends, you must first focus on the "smell"

Through the above experiments, researchers have determined that smell is closely related to making friends.

But specifically friendship shapes scent? Or does smell inspire friendship? They are not sure (for example, similar living habits and similar eating habits between friends may also lead to similar tastes).

In order to clarify the cause-and-effect relationship between the two, the researchers recruited a new group of volunteers who did not know each other and conducted another test called the "Mirror Game" - the game required volunteers to pair up in pairs and play without words. Imitate the actions of the other person while communicating. After the

test, the researchers invited them to participate in a favorability survey. The results showed that 1/3 of the volunteers and their partners had a good impression of each other after completing the test and expressed that they looked forward to seeing each other more often. The researchers found that the odor molecules of these people also showed a high degree of similarity.

The volunteers who said they had "no feelings" about each other were also less similar in their experiences, and could even be called "irrelevant".

"Using odor similarity analysis, we finally successfully predicted whether 77% of the volunteers were in tune, and the prediction accuracy for those who were not in tune was also 68%." said the researcher. "More importantly, the more similar people smell, the higher their satisfaction with each other, and the better they understand each other."

What is the principle of "knowing friends by smell"?

Among non-human mammals, "smell" is an important social tool, and many animals rely on it to distinguish friends from enemies.

But in human social situations, "getting close to each other and smelling each other" is not elegant. Therefore, in normal times, "communication between people mainly relies on language, and the importance of smell is naturally weakened." This is also an important reason why the social role of "smell" has been seriously underestimated.

This study proves that humans are no different from animals when it comes to "knowing friends by smell" - only those with similar "smells" (similar body odors) are more likely to become friends.

researchers speculate that the reason for this is that the brain has adapted to its own smell and is less likely to fear the same smell. On the contrary, when a stranger with a strange body odor approaches, the brain has to increase its vigilance, and the amygdala , which is the "fear center", is activated, triggering a series of negative emotions.

This may also explain why you always feel comfortable physically and mentally when you are with close friends.

Don’t believe it? Please ask your best friend or gay friend to hand over his sweatshirt.

References

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn0154

https://phys.org/news/2022-06-friends-people-drawn.html

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