Study: Fishy Smells Make People More Skeptical

SACRAMENTO (CBS Sacramento) - We often say something "smells fishy" when we don't believe what we're hearing.

Now a new study says that metaphor is more appropriate than you thought: the smell of spoiled fish actually makes us more skeptical.

Researchers at the University of Southern California and the University of Michigan asked 61 students to complete a questionnaire inside a specially constructed booth, reports Futurity.org.

Thirty-one of the students filled out the questionnaire in a booth that was sprayed inside with fish oil. The other 30 were in a scent-free booth.

Among the various questions was a logical incongruity that scientists call the Moses Illusion: "How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the Ark?"

People often fail to notice the name switch in the question and answer "two," when it was actually Noah who built the Biblical Ark and brought them on the vessel in pairs.

In this study, 15 of the 31 students who were in the fishy smelling booth noticed something was amiss with the question.

Only five of the students in the non-fishy booth had the same realization.

The researchers suggest that the fish smell raises suspicions.

"If I'm distrustful, then I'm thinking, 'Something's wrong here.' And then I have to think more critically and figure out what is wrong," says Norbert Schwarz, the study's lead author and director of the USC Dornsife Center for Mind and Society.

The trigger smell can vary from country to country, though it's always some sort of rotting food, like potatoes, for instance.

"We are looking at collaborating with researchers in other countries to learn more about the role of sensory experience in critical thinking," Schwarz added.

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

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