Academic Work

Rachel Herz has been conducting research on smell, emotion and cognition for the past 17 years and has published over 50 original research papers, contributed numerous chapters to college textbooks and academic anthologies, and has received a number of grants and prestigious awards. Since 2000 she has been on the faculty at Brown University. Dr. Herz’s research has shown how odor-evoked memory is emotionally unique compared to other kinds of memory experiences, how emotional associations can change odor perception, and how odors can be conditioned to emotions and subsequently influence motivated behavior. Her work also deals with how language can affect odor perception and her laboratory has empirically demonstrated the first instance of olfactory illusions created by words alone. A third area of her research concerns the role of body-odor and fragrance in heterosexual attraction. Theoretically guided by perspectives from cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology, Dr. Herz uses psychophysical, self-report, cognitive-behavioral and neurological techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to investigate these topics.

Sampling of Published Articles:

Herz, R.S. (1997). Emotion experienced during encoding enhances odor retrieval cue effectiveness. American Journal of Psychology, 110, 489-505.

Herz, R.S. (1998). Are odors the best cues to memory? A cross-modal comparison of associative memory stimuli. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 855, 670-674.

Herz, R.S., & von Clef, J. (2001). The influence of verbal labeling on the perception of odors: Evidence for olfactory illusions? Perception, 30, 381-391.

Herz, R.S., & Inzlicht, M. (2002). Gender differences in response to physical and social signals involved in human mate selection: The importance of smell for women. Evolution and Human Behavior, 23, 359-364.

Herz, R.S., Eliassen, J.C., Beland, S.L., & T. Souza. (2003). Neuroimaging evidence for the emotional potency of odor-evoked memory. Neuropsychologia, 42, 371-378.

Herz, R.S., Beland, S.L. & Hellerstein, M. (2004). Changing odor hedonic perception through emotional associations in humans. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 17, 315-339.

Herz, R.S., Schankler, C. & Beland, S. (2004). Olfaction, emotion and associative learning: Effects on motivated behavior. Motivation and Emotion, 28, 363-383.

Herz, R.S. (2005). Odor-associative learning and emotion: Effects on perception and behavior. Chemical Senses, 30, 250-251.

ACADEMIC WORK

Rachel Herz