This has prob come up before but I cant find it so ill post it again. Sorry if this isnt particularly well explained.
I get the impression from this forum that the model is that people can differentiate each others pheromone signatures and link the feelings that those pheromones give them to the individual (please correct me if im wrong). I understand how pheromones can affect peoples moods just like a drug and hence can affect an interaction in varous ways in the same way that people will interact differently when on different drugs.
But I dont understand how people can consciously or subconsciously pick up on the source of the pheromone and associate the affect with a certain individual in a group (of course in an one on one interaction people will attribute most of the emotions they experience to the other persons behaviour). For example a recent post by Gem tells the story of a girl ignoring his friend who approached her to come talk to him because hes wearing pheromones. It just doesnt make any sense to me. If find it especially difficult to see how people could differentiate each others signatures in a crowed place. Please explain or tell me that nobody was ever suggesting this.
It is fairly easy to identify someone who is really stinky, or someone who has put on too much cologne or perfume.
It seems likely that the mechanisms that allow us to consciously associate an individual with a strong smell would function in the same manner to allow a distinctive pheremone signature to be associated with an individual.
If you put 50 articles of clothing on the ground and 1 of them was worn by my father, mother, brother or sister. I can easily tell you the one that was worn by family member. I can identify any family member by smell or by sound (the way they walk, how wide they open doors, their weight hitting the ground) same goes for smells and pheromones.
Smell your mother (or one of her shirts), i highly doubt you won’t be able to identify her smell. When she breast fed you (i hope she did, is way more healthy), her breast pheromone are ingraved in your mind.
When someone has a distinctive smell, it is usually fairly easy to determine the source, even when there are others around you. I think pheromones work pretty much in the same way, only on a more subconscious level. But then again, we are often subconciously associate particular scents with one person.