Descripción del proyecto
Convertir la percepción olfativa humana en datos digitales
La digitalización ha penetrado en todos los ámbitos de la investigación. Así las cosas, aún no se dispone de datos sobre la percepción olfativa humana. En el proyecto D2Smell, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, se pretende colmar esta laguna de la ciencia básica mediante la realización de tres experimentos. Uno de los experimentos consiste en equipar a los participantes con dispositivos ponibles para medir muestras de olores, actividad neuronal, secuencias de vídeo y compuestos orgánicos volátiles. El objetivo principal es crear un equivalente olfativo de Google Street View y aprovechar los datos recopilados para digitalizar el espacio perceptivo olfativo humano. Para lograrlo, se optimizará un modelo existente que recrea olores utilizando un conjunto reducido de olores básicos. A continuación, el equipo de D2Smell validará este modelo con los marcos SmelloVision y TelleSmell.
Objetivo
This proposal is framed by a technological goal: We aim to digitize smell. Achieving this is currently prevented by gaps in basic science. We aim to fill these gaps, culminating in a proof of concept for our model. The primary gap we identify is lack of data on what humans typically smell. Phrased conceptually, in Aim 1 we ask what are the natural statistics of human olfactory perceptual space. We address this in a series of three experiments, highlighted by one where we equip participants with a wearable sampling apparatus we designed and built for this proposal. The apparatus measures sniffing behaviour to identify odor sampling, measures neural activity to verify olfactory perception, takes video of the visual scene, analyses total levels of volatile organic compounds in real time, and collects odor samples for detailed analysis off line. In other words, we generate an olfactory equivalent of Google Street View, with the addition of chemical, perceptual and neural data. Using this we will characterise the natural statistics of human olfactory perceptual space. Moreover, a major contribution of this proposal will be in posting this massive data as a publicly available recourse. Next, in Aim 2 we will use this data to digitize human olfactory perceptual space. We build on a model that allows us to recreate odors using a restricted set of odor primaries. We will test our model in two frameworks: One we call SmelloVision, where we develop the algorithmic framework to generate an odor to match any digital image, and one we call TelleSmell, where we develop a device to sense the environment, the algorithmic framework to transfer the data, and a device to generate the corresponding odor remotely. We provide pilot data for Aim 2 where we sensed an odor in Mainz (Germany), transmitted the data over IP to Rehovot (Israel), where we successfully recreated the smell. This was, as far as we know, the first transmission of odor over IP.
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Convocatoria de propuestas
(se abrirá en una nueva ventana) ERC-2023-SyG
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoriaRégimen de financiación
HORIZON-ERC-SYG -Institución de acogida
7610001 Rehovot
Israel