Reproducible research into human semiochemical cues and pheromones: learning from psychology’s renaissance

1 Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, University College London, University of London, London, United Kingdom
2 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, England, United Kingdom
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.27908v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Animal Behavior, Neuroscience
Keywords
Reproducibility, registered reports, publication bias, olfaction, chemical senses, Δ4,16-androstadien-3-one, pheromones, cues, smell, semiochemical
Copyright
© 2019 Wyatt
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Wyatt TD. 2019. Reproducible research into human semiochemical cues and pheromones: learning from psychology’s renaissance. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27908v1

Abstract

As with other mammals, smell in the form of semiochemicals is likely to influence the behaviour of humans, as olfactory cues to emotions, health, and mate choice. A subset of semiochemicals, pheromones, chemical signals within a species, have been identified in many mammal species. As mammals, we may have pheromones too. Sadly, the story of molecules claimed to be ‘putative human pheromones’ is a classic example of bad science carried out by good scientists. Much of human semiochemicals research including work on ‘human pheromones’ and olfactory cues comes within the field of psychology. Thus, the research is highly likely to be affected by the ‘reproducibility crisis’ in psychology and other life sciences. Psychology researchers have responded with proposals to enable better, more reliable science, with an emphasis on enhancing reproducibility. A key change is the adoption of study pre-registration which will also reduce publication bias. Human semiochemicals research would benefit from adopting these proposals.

Author Comment

This is a draft contribution to be submitted to Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B for a conference proceedings from a meeting on ‘Chemical communication in humans’ 1-2 April 2019. https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2019/04/chemical-communication/