Smells Like... Monkey?

1:30 PM -- From today's Guardian:

Oxford scientists today confirm what every sommelier has always known instinctively: that labels can trick the brain into a different kind of perception.

Edmund Rolls and colleagues at the department of experimental psychology in Oxford report in Neuron that they used brain scanners to watch the reaction of a set of volunteers to assorted words and smells. They made them sniff the scent of cheddar cheese, and asked them to rate the experience. When the hapless volunteers were presented with the label "cheddar cheese" they rated the scent as pleasant, or at least more pleasant than when it was labelled "body odour."

The really hapless volunteers preferred the BO.

— Larry, Attack Monkey, Light Reading