Health Issue: Soulmates can smell partners' fear

Soulmates can smell partners' fear

New York: Couples who are close can actually detect each other's feelings of fear, happiness and sexual arousal, claim a study.

         "Familiarity with a partner enhances detection of emotional cues in that person's smell," Rice University psychologist Denise Chen told Science News. Chen and her team looked at 20 heterosexual couples who had been living together for between one and seven years. As volunteers viewed videos meant to induce feelings of happiness, fear and sexual arousal, underarm pads collected their seat.

        Then the participants smelled odors from four jars that held the sweat from their partner or a stanger of the opposite sex, and tried to name one smell that came from a person who was experiencing a particular feeling.

         One jar held sweat that was collected during a video meant to induce particular emotions. The other jars contained perspiration that had been collected during a neutral video.

        Nearly two-thirds of the time, participants could pick up the specific emotions from their partner's body odor,and couples who had lived together the longest were best at homing in on each other's emotional odors. the accuracy rate dropped to 50% for opposite sex strangers.