Neuroscientist Artin Arshamian and his team sought to determine what affects a person’s perception of an odor as pleasant: is it culture, personal taste, or aspects of human anatomy? The team assessed odor preferences in ten groups of people with different modes of living (urban, agricultural, and hunter-gatherer) including urban dwellers from a large city in Thailand and the Seri people from a small community in Mexico. The team observed that across cultures, people generally rated odors about the same: vanillin, which smells like vanilla, was typically rated more pleasant than galbazine, which smells like peanuts. The team therefore concluded that
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Verbal·Information and Ideas·Inferences
easyWhich choice most logically completes the text?
A
culture likely plays more of a role in a person’s perception of how pleasant an odor is than does human anatomy.
B
a person’s mode of living likely doesn’t have a large influence on that person’s perception of whether an odor is pleasant or unpleasant.
C
a person who lives in an urban area is more likely to encounter the odor of vanillin than is a person who lives in a small community.
D
a person who perceives certain odors as pleasant will likely perceive the odors as roughly equal in pleasantness.