Aspetti ontogenetici della comunicazione olfattiva

Ontogenetic Aspects of Olfactory Communication.

This research focuses on the development of olfactory sensibility and the role of odors in regulating social and affective behaviors, including their psychological and semiotic features during pre-natal and neo-natal ontogenesis. The theoretical and descriptive approach of this article takes into account empirical data which reveal that the beginning of human ontogenesis provides a privileged point of view from which to examine the origins of our sociality and cognition, aswell as the first processes of meaning formation. The structural and functional precociousness of olfaction can explain newborns’capability to immediately recognize their mothers by scent, as it is an experience they have already had in the womb. This capability is the liaison between pre- and post-natal life; it orients the babyimmediately after birth, all while creating the first attachment ties. In the mother-baby relationship, olfactory communication is the first and most intimate language, and is fundamental to orientation during the extra-uterine life.