It’s more than a metaphor. The subtle scent of rotting fish raises suspicion. We don’t only become suspicious of the fishy smell itself, but to whatever task that happens to be occupying our attention.
Researchers Norbert Schwarz and Spike Lee (not that Spike Lee) write in their paper:
“… exposure to fishy smells is sufficient to undermine cooperation in economic trust and public good games … [and] increase the detection of misleading information and facilitate critical reasoning, including a more critical analysis of one’s own beliefs.”
They came to this conclusion following several interesting studies designed to test our critical eye. For instance, the Moses illusion:
Legend has it Noah took two of every animal on an ark, saving them from extinction. Sometimes when people are asked how many of each animal Moses took on the ark, they’ll answer two. When the smell of fish is present, more people recognise the name is wrong.
“Whereas 83.3% of participants in the neutral smell condition failed to notice that something was wrong with Moses, only 58.1% failed to notice in the fishy smell condition.”
They also tested our ability to confirm a pattern:
Two, four, six. The sequence goes on, governed by a rule. What’s the rule? It could be to add two to the…
