Do older people have a different smell? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do older people have a different smell?

#51

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #49

dredmorbius wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've directly encountered the gas-hob-on-but-unlit scenario myself with someone whose sense of smell is virtually completely gone, and it terrifies me. (How far gone? They are unable to distinguish, or detect, the sents of various Dr. Bronners soaps, directly before them.) And mercaptan[1] (the oderising component in municipal natural gas) is among the most detectable scents in existence. The reasons why it was intro…

You know how horrible 2-part epoxy smells? She can't smell it an inch from her nose. I mean zero sense of smell.

I can relate. And yes, it's terrifying.

The more so because the condition is quite often coincident with a tremendous state of denial. Anosognosia:

https://en,wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosognosia

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosogn... (part 1 of a 5-part series)

Re: Do older people have a different smell?

#52

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 6:42 PM UTC

Andrex wrote: post #31

lonelappde wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swimming seems a special case because that's a clearly foreign substance attached to the body. More interesting are cases where the lifestyle causes smellable long-term changes to body chemistry that can't be cleaned off.

Immersing yourself in chlorine for large stretches of time probably messes with your skin's biome, though I agree probably not to the extent that the change alone would produce a discernible smell.

That's a plausible component. The chlorine also dries out the dermis, which may change its scent.

Re: Do older people have a different smell?

#53

Post by rebuilder » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

jraph wrote: post #26

beat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Synesthesia is very hard to explain. It's like explaining color to the blind. I have mild synesthesia myself - I hear flavors. I can say "I hear flavors", but that doesn't help to tell you what different flavors sound like, because sounds themselves are very hard to describe in words. The best way to experience something like synesthesia is under the influence of LSD or similar drugs. Not that I recommend it, but it…

Do noises prevent you from fully tasting food? (sorry if these questions are boring to you) I asked this question in my previous comment because I've read about people having synesthesia discovering quite late that no, to most people, smells or figures don't have any specific color or character (depending on the involved senses), during a conversation in which they take for granted that their interlocutor experiences…

My wife has fairly classic synesthesia, with letters and numbers having colours and "character" etc. I don't have that, but I do have exactly what you described with numbers, months of the year, and years having an unchanging position in a mental 3-d model. The model for each of these is a bit different, but each could be described as a kind of winding road.

So I wouldn't say I'm synesthetic, but at the same time I can't really point to a clear difference between how my mind associates numbers with locations in a spatial structure, and how my wife's mind associates them with colours.

I also can't really say how those associations are different from the kinds of associations that the mind seems to make to anchor new experiences and information into memory. I'm not explaining that very well, but overall I half think synesthesia seems more like just an atypical manifestation of a probably universal human trait, and less like a rare oddity.

Re: Do older people have a different smell?

#54

Post by agitator » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

My dog was chased around as a puppy by an old lady with oven mitts.

Now he gets anxious when he smells old people. So from my anecdotal evidence, I think they probably have a distinct smell.

My theory is that the smell is distinct because of pharmaceuticals. A lot of older people are on all sorts of medications. I think a lot of medicines cause the body to give off differing odors. From personal experience, I've noticed my body odor change when on different medicines. And have actually noticed that other elderly people I've been around have a faint chemical odor to them.

Re: Do older people have a different smell?

#55

Post by beat » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

jraph wrote: post #26

beat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Synesthesia is very hard to explain. It's like explaining color to the blind. I have mild synesthesia myself - I hear flavors. I can say "I hear flavors", but that doesn't help to tell you what different flavors sound like, because sounds themselves are very hard to describe in words. The best way to experience something like synesthesia is under the influence of LSD or similar drugs. Not that I recommend it, but it…

Do noises prevent you from fully tasting food? (sorry if these questions are boring to you) I asked this question in my previous comment because I've read about people having synesthesia discovering quite late that no, to most people, smells or figures don't have any specific color or character (depending on the involved senses), during a conversation in which they take for granted that their interlocutor experiences…

No, sounds don't prevent me from tasting food. But certain types of sounds are severe migraine triggers for me, and my migraines are definitely related to synesthesia and sensory issues. Over the past 20 years or so, my migraines evolved to mostly go after my sense of smell. It's bizarre, trying to explain that a smell can hurt as much as a burn - worse, it happens with smells I normally like.

Sounds that trigger migraines are mostly certain kinds of echoes - the kind from sharp sounds in large, hard rooms like gymnasiums. I can't really be in a gym with people applauding.

Re: Do older people have a different smell?

#56

Post by jraph » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

rebuilder wrote: post #53

jraph wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do noises prevent you from fully tasting food? (sorry if these questions are boring to you) I asked this question in my previous comment because I've read about people having synesthesia discovering quite late that no, to most people, smells or figures don't have any specific color or character (depending on the involved senses), during a conversation in which they take for granted that their interlocutor experiences…

My wife has fairly classic synesthesia, with letters and numbers having colours and "character" etc. I don't have that, but I do have exactly what you described with numbers, months of the year, and years having an unchanging position in a mental 3-d model. The model for each of these is a bit different, but each could be described as a kind of winding road. So I wouldn't say I'm synesthetic, but at the same time I c…

I also have some representation for numbers and for the days of the week, but it would not be 3D, more like 2D, and kind of dynamic, too: the view is relative to the “focused” number / day. Same thing as you, the representations are different for numbers, days of the week and months. The days are horizontal, and months too. Numbers, not so much. Kind of horizontal up to ten, and then vertical up to twenty, and then I would not know how to describe it. There is a kind of break for each tens up to one hundred, with numbers being mostly horizontal but not quiet, and each teen somewhat higher than the previous one. Negatives have the exact same place as there opposite. Days of the months are the same as numbers. Anyway, describing this is kind of pointless. This representation does not feel very precise.

These representations are the same since as far as I can remember. I know that some people I discussed with don't think they have such a representation for numbers or dates. It seems to correspond to the description given in [1].

I think it may have an impact on my memory, at least for dates (but nothing extraordinary). It's usually easy to remember meetings and events in the year, because they somewhat appear in the representation, I don't really need a calendar if there are not too much things scheduled (but I note in a log, just in case, and it's not completely reliable too).

You might have calendar synesthesia [2,3], and maybe me too, but maybe weaker than yours or my father's.

And yeah, it's not something we really see, its a representation that automatically comes into the mind without us trying to at all. Right?

Maybe many people actually have some form of synesthesia.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia#Number_form

[2] https://www.thecut.com/2016/11/the-form-of-synesthesia-where...

[3] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesth%C3%A9sie#Synesth%C3%A9...

Translation of [3]:

> Like “numerical synesthesia”, spatio-temporal synesthesia is a mental map of the days of the week and/or months of the year. People having this kind of synesthesia state that they can “see the time” as a ribbon, a ring or a circle for instance. According to some studies, these people would have particular synaptic connections in their brain, allowing them to live time like a spatial construction.

> Like all the forms of synesthesia, “spatio-temporal” also shows a permanent feature: tested months later, someone having synesthesia will report the same experiences they had previously reported.

Re: Do older people have a different smell?

#57

Post by r0ze-at-hn » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:19 PM UTC

felipemnoa wrote: post #41

r0ze-at-hn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't overlaid in my visual field, more like how you imaging or remember things in your head, very hard to describe. I usually don't pay attention but it is just there. noteworthy? If I concentrate I can follow the trail of someone with a strong sent that had walked by in the last say 10 minutes like a blood hound. I _know_ when fish is labeled incorrectly when I do my weekly grocery shopping. I know when that per…

>>It isn't overlaid in my visual field, more like how you imaging or remember things in your head So to be more exact you can "see" smells with your mind's eye but you do not actually see anything with your physical eyes when smelling something.

haha yeah it isn't like I "see" a purple haze floating over the grass and moving in the wind or anything.

More when I smell the grass I "see" in my mind what that smell looks like (purplish).

Re: Do older people have a different smell?

#58

Post by Kamic » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:29 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #4

Babies smell. My friend, undergoing radiation therapy for cancer, had a distinct smell. As have those treated with specific chemotherapies. Athletes smell. Indoor and outdoor athletes differently. Pool swimmers of chlorine, open-water swimmers of the sea. Parkinsons and Alzheimers appear to have distinctive smells. Diabetes is characterised for its distinct smell (and taste). We are chemically-regulated, processing,…

I have diabetes, what do I smell like?

Re: Do older people have a different smell?

#59

Post by mikekchar » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 10:50 PM UTC

r0ze-at-hn wrote: post #23

salawat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it overlaid on your visual field, or more of a parallel mental construct? Also, are there any particularly noteworthy smells in terms of representation? I have to admit, the idea of a visual artifact for smells is amazing!

It isn't overlaid in my visual field, more like how you imaging or remember things in your head, very hard to describe. I usually don't pay attention but it is just there. noteworthy? If I concentrate I can follow the trail of someone with a strong sent that had walked by in the last say 10 minutes like a blood hound. I _know_ when fish is labeled incorrectly when I do my weekly grocery shopping. I know when that per…

I don't have this in general, but when you were talking about someone who is quitting smoking I just realised that I have a distinct visual impression of the smell when a smoker really needs to have a smoke. It's kind of yellowish and it falls off them and gathers at their feet like a kind of fog.

I'm a super taster for a few things and I suspect that whatever odor that is, I can detect it better than most. Anyway, thanks for your description!

Re: Do older people have a different smell?

#60

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 10:59 PM UTC

Kamic wrote: post #58

dredmorbius wrote: post #4

Babies smell. My friend, undergoing radiation therapy for cancer, had a distinct smell. As have those treated with specific chemotherapies. Athletes smell. Indoor and outdoor athletes differently. Pool swimmers of chlorine, open-water swimmers of the sea. Parkinsons and Alzheimers appear to have distinctive smells. Diabetes is characterised for its distinct smell (and taste). We are chemically-regulated, processing,…

I have diabetes, what do I smell like?

Roughly: rotten apples.

(Not sure if you spoil the barrel or not though.)