If ice cream is sniffed at three different temperatures: frozen, room temperature and heated, then more people will be able to accurately identify the flavour of the ice cream by smell alone at the higher temperatures, because the molecules of ice cream will move more freely.

If you’re wondering how your sense of smell works, here’s how. The olfactory sensory neurons in a small patch of tissue high inside the nose pick up smells. Each olfactory neuron has one odour sensor. Microscopic molecules get picked up by the receptors. Once the neuron picks up the molecules, they send a message to the brain. The brain figures out the smell, and labels it based on what it’s been taught.
Temperature affects smells. It can make the smell harder to pick up or easier. High temperatures increase the mobility of the odour molecule. This makes them move quicker and as a result you can sense the smell more intensely. There is a higher concentration of odour molecules when the thing you’re smelling is warmer.

Controlled Variables:
○ Sniff testers will be blindfolded.
○ Consistent nose-to-bowl distance: they will be measured so the distance of nose-to-bowl is always 6
inches.
○ Consistent number of sniffs: the sniff testers will be allowed two sniffs (inhalation through the nose).
○ Heated ice cream temperature: the temperature of the heated ice cream will be checked often to always be 33-34C.
○ Sniff time: the sniffer will have ten seconds to state the flavour of the ice cream or admit if they cannot smell it.
 
 ○ Frozen ice cream temperature: the frozen sample will return to the freezer between sniffers to keep it from thawing.
○ Sniffing environment: the location to smell the ice cream will be separated by temperature zones (i.e. frozen, room temperature, heated). We don’t want the particles of the heated ice cream to spread to the rooms of the other temperature samples.
Manipulated Variable:
The temperature of the ice cream samples: frozen (sub-zero), room temperature (around 21C), heated (33-34C)
Responding Variable:
Whether the sniffer can smell ice cream, and if they can, whether they can identify the flavour.

1. Buy three flavours of ice cream: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry
2. Put one cup of each flavour into three bowls (total of 9 bowls)
3. Freeze one bowl of each flavour
4. Allow one bowl of each flavour to melt to room temperature (around 21C)
5. Heat one bowl of each flavour for 30 seconds in the microwave, reaching a temperature of 33C
6. Blind-fold the sniff tester
7. Measure their nose distance to the bowl
8. Start with the frozen bowl
9. Next sniff the room temperate bowl
10. Lastly,sniff theheatedbowl(becausewedon’twanttoriskfillingtheairwithheatedicecreammolecules
we will have the sniff testers start in the basement, move to the TV room, and finish in the kitchen so the air is separated as the kitchen is on a different floor than the other rooms).

We observed better accuracy when smelling heated ice cream then smelling frozen ice cream. We also observed 0 people who were unable to smell anything in heated ice cream but some people were unable to smell anything while the ice cream was frozen.

The ability to smell ice cream is definitely better with increased temperature. Many people cannot smell ice cream at all (more than half) when it is frozen. No one is unable to smell ice cream at all when it is heated. Also, the ability to tell what the flavour of ice cream is definitely increases with higher temperatures.

The ability to tell what the flavour of ice cream is definitely increases with higher temperature.

Some people have allergies to things you can smell. We wonder if you can stop an allergy attack using extreme cold in the nose.
Sometimes there are bad smells and we think temperature could be used to reduce how gross they are. For example, maybe dry ice could be used in junior high locker rooms?
Restaurants could use higher temperatures at their entrance to bring customers in by enticing them with the good smell of their food.
The smell of hospitals makes many people nervous. Maybe temperature and different smells can be used in ways to make people relax.

People might have different types of inhales as they start to want to be better at smelling the ice cream (some of the people seemed to inhale deeper for the later tests).
It was very hard to keep the warmed ice cream at the exact same temperature for the entire test for each person. A small amount of ice cream that has been warmed cools very quickly.
People knew they were going to be smelling three flavours of ice cream. We now think maybe they should have not known anything about what the food product they were smelling.

National Institute of Health: Sense of Smell

Cleveland Clinic: Olfactory Nerve

Harvard Health: Ways to Regain Your Sense of Smell

Dana Foundation: The Senses of Smell and Taste 

We would like to thank Billy Friley from Village ice cream for setting up a time for a interview.

Have you ever noticed that you cannot smell ice cream?
(This one blew our minds...) “No, I actually never thought of that. Isn’t that funny!”
Now that we’ve told you that frozen ice cream has no smell, do you think there are some types of ice cream that we would be able to smell?
“Oh for sure. Ice creams with add ons that have lower water content would be easier to smell. For example: banana or mango. Also ice cream with herbs would be easier to smell at any temperature, like the flavours we make with lavender or basil. Acidic fruits that are added would make the ice cream have a stronger smell. I’m not sure if temperature would affect that.”
Can you tell me about the process of making ice cream?
“First you need a pasteurizer to raise the temperature to kill bacteria, then you cool it, and when we make ice cream, we definitely smell it when it’s in the pasteurizer because of the heat. You also have to homogenize the ice cream. That’s really cool because it’s like shooting the ice cream through a hole super fast and then it hits a target really hard. Then the particles all become the same.”