We’re right to be suspicious of fishy smells

IT IS said that if something is suspicious, it smells fishy.

Now, scientists have shown that the smell of fish actually heightens our suspicions.

Men and women were more likely to spot a trick question when asked it in a booth scented with fish oil, a study found.

The researchers say we may have evolved to be alert to the dangers of eating rotting meat and fish – and so question things more when we come across the distinctive smell.

The US psychologists asked 61 men and women to answer two trivia questions. Half did the test in a booth that smelled of fish, half in fresh-smelling air.

When asked to name a country famous for its cuckoo clocks, chocolate, banks and knives, members of the two groups were equally likely to come up with the correct answer of Switzerland.

However, they differed in their ability to get the second question right. This was the trick question: How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the Ark?

Previous research has shown most people reply ‘two’ to this, despite knowing it was Noah who took the animals on the Ark. In the US study, however, the volunteers in the fishy booth were more than twice as likely to spot the name switch as the others.

researcher David Lee, of the University of Michigan, said the smell of fish fuelled suspicion, leading to people thinking past the obvious.

He told the Journal of experimental Social Psychology that it was likely we inherited our heightened awareness of fishy smells from our ancestors, for whom a suspicion of foul-smelling food was a survival instinct.