Pamela Dalton is a

cognitive psychologist Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which he ...

. She has a Ph.D. in experimental psychology and a Masters in Public Health. Dalton is frequently quoted by the popular press as an authority on environmental odors. She has done extensive research in the fields of

sick building syndrome Sick building syndrome (SBS) is an unsubstantiated diagnosis where health problems are attributed to buildings. The cause of the health problems are unknown. Symptoms attributed to SBS may or may not be a direct result of inadequate cleaning or ...

and

multiple chemical sensitivity Multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), also known as idiopathic environmental intolerances (IEI), is an unrecognized and controversial diagnosis characterized by chronic symptoms attributed to exposure to low levels of commonly used chemicals. Symp ...

. In the past she has worked with the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

on nonlethal weapons development, or the enhancement of bad odors as weapons. She currently works at the

Monell Chemical Senses Center The Monell Chemical Senses Center is a non-profit independent scientific institute located at the University City Science Center campus in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. Monell conducts and publishes interdisciplinary basic research on taste, Olfa ...

NIH Toolbox

Dalton was a contributor to the

NIH Toolbox The NIH Toolbox®, for the assessment of neurological and behavioral function, is a multidimensional set of brief royalty-free measures that researchers and clinicians can use to assess cognitive, sensory, motor and emotional function in people ag ...

for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function, as a member of the NIH Toolbox steering committee and the Olfaction team, developing the NIH Toolbox Odor Identification Test. The contract for the

for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function was initiated by the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research in 2006 to develop a set of state-of-the-art measurement tools to enhance collection of data in large cohort studies in biomedical research.Talan, Jamie
New NIH Toolbox Rolled Out for Standardized Behavioral and Clinical Assessment Measures.Neurology Today
2012; 12(21):7

PTSD

Dalton has extensively researched the relationship between smell and negative memories. She has conducted experiments showing that a strong odourant can turn even a mundane experience into a vivid and permanent memory. This research has important implications for studying and treating PTSD. Dalton continued this line of research in order to determine if it is possible to inoculate people with certain odors in order to prevent the formation of traumatic memories. She found that if you first exposed someone to a strong odor in a non-threatening environment and then exposed them to the same odor in a stressful, negative context there was no association between the smell and the negative memory. Dalton's research led to the United States military changing how it trains soldiers. Mock combat environments used for training exercises now include olfactory cues designed to mimic smells like dead bodies, open sewers, melting plastic, etc.

Stink bomb

Dalton was asked by the United States military to design a "stink bomb" in 1998. Dalton discovered that culture and geography mediate the sense of smell. Despite this problem, she eventually discovered a universally hated smell and packaged it as "Stink Soup."

References

External links

This Woman Invented the World's Worst Smell
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dalton, Pamela American women psychologists American cognitive psychologists 21st-century American biologists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women scientists 21st-century American psychologists