Rachel Herz has been conducting research on smell, emotion and cognition for the past 19 years and has published over 55 research papers, contributed numerous chapters to college textbooks and academic anthologies, and has received a number of grants and prestigious awards. She is also the author of the book The Scent of Desire
. Since 2000 she has been on the faculty at Brown University. 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, Herz uses psychophysical, self-report, cognitive-behavioral and neurological techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to investigate these topics. Her research on sensory memory was on display from 2001-2006 in a traveling Smithsonian Institution exhibit called "Brain: The world inside your head."
Her PT blog is Smell Life.
