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Where topographic organization fits into this discussion?

If sensation is the product of a pattern of outputs, but this pattern is the result of several identitcal action potentials traveling along cables at a measurable (and relatively slow) rate of speed, would topographic organization affect how this information is perceived?

Olfaction is considered one of the most "direct" senses in that it does not pass through the thalamus during processing (1). Yet we humans seem to dedicate so little attention to olfaction that we don't even have a very profound or insightful vocabulary to describe scents, (2) with one text even describing the sense of smell as "much less essential than vision or audition..." (3). Our primary sensations are routed through the thalamus, meaning it takes more cabling, and conceivably more time, to perceive what we see or what we hear. What does this mean for our experience of the world? Why do the things we see and smell coincide? Why don't we smell well in advance of seeing things in front of us?

1. Olfaction and the Brain, Brewer Castle & Pantelis

http://books.google.com/books?id=UM_A_FDe8lkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r#PPA70,M1

"Encoding of olfactory stimuli in relation to semantic processing and affect."

2. Physiology of Behavior, Carlson

Chapter 7 Audition, the Body Senses, and the Chemical Senses: Olfaction

Pg 238

3. Olfactory Pathways and the Limbic System

www.neuroanatomy.wisc.edu/coursebook/neuro3(2).pdf