The function of olfactory experience in reasoning : An empirical study

Abstract

This study reports the role of olfactory experience (i. e. smell of medication) in a nine-year old girl’s reasoning in pair-work situation where the children were asked to choose items useful on a desert island. The extract analysed here is part of the larger data set of my dissertation, in which I investigate how sensory-motor activities involved in reasoning. I video-recorded an experimental task, in which the participants (N=27; age=9; Hungarian L1) have been asked to choose 7 items out of 14 to take those to an imaginary uninhabited island. The multimodal analysis shows that children did not choose the vitamin pills due to its unpleasant smell. The findings suggests that crossmodal experiences can be structural elements of reasoning.