Sorry about the delay of this post, I totally forgot about it until this morning. It was probably because I was not given a scented pencil when assigned this blog topic. A study mentioned in at the link below provides an experiment testing olfaction and memory. In the experiment one group of students were given scented pencils and another group received regular pencils. Both groups were told a few key points about the pencils. The group who got the scented pencils remembered the facts about the pencils better.
I was curious to learn more about scent/smells and memory. Many of my own memories have a distinct scent memory attached to them; this may be because I spent quite a bit of my childhood in India. The link below does state that, “Autobiographical memory is enhanced more by scent than by any of the other senses, beginning even before birth.”
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/6360
6 comments:
It is really interesting how the sense of smell works. It is such a simple process: sniff and experience what happens next. Yet it is the most strong sense when it comes to linking memories. It even ties the loose ends of visual and audible memory of an event associated with that smell. It's interesting that seeing something doesn't necessarily trigger the memory of a smell. We can think about the smell, but we really need the smell itself to conjur up the smell memory. I myself have always had a very good sense of smell, which may explain why I have such a good memory. But in seriousness, it would be interesting to find out more about how and why smell is so memorable.
I found it particularly interesting that of all the senses, scent takes the longest time to process. The sensation of experiencing a smell is long lasting, allowing us to associate a smell with a memory in a stronger, less voluntary way. I am interested in the research seeking an explanation for the ability of scent to trigger memory and feeling without any other senses helping to activate recollection. Though the phenomenon is evident, reasoning has not yet been developed.
I realized I had a connection to several examples of the strength of scent, such as the lost of a loved one. Though it is harder to conjure up a clear image of a face, or to distinctly hear their voice, I have found myself in a situation where I noticed a smell and immediately remembered a person, with the image of them doing a specific activity, such as playing a card game, in a living room I had not seen in at least ten years, remembering the furniture and knickknacks that adorned bookcases. From these memories, I was able to remember more details about that person, their home, and the stories they told, than I thought I could.
I found this informative article on why smell can invoke memories, because I figured there must be some scientific reason for it. This article in Discovery Health explains that the reason we are able to link smells with memories is for two reasons. The first is that the olfactory bulb is part of the brain’s Limbic System, which is an area that is very closely associated with memory and feeling. Furthermore, the olfactory bulb also has access to the amygdala(the part of your brain the processes emotion) and this hippocampus. Also, we link smells to memory because we’re conditioned to do so. When we smell something, we instantly link it to something. The example the article states is associating the smell of chlorine with summers at the pool.
Another piece of interest in the article is that smell often brings up memories of our childhoods because we encounter most new smells then. Sometimes we can even recall emotions before birth because of smell. An example is that an infant who was exposed to garlic in the womb will show a preference for the smell of garlic.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/nose-throat/smell3.htm
I think it is a very valid thing to say that scent is important (or at least can be important) to memory, and I think it might be safe to say that it is important not only to memory in humans, but in other animals as well. Think about it—when baby animals are born, many of them are still blind, and may be blind for several days if not weeks. They still have to recognize their mother, so how do they do it? With smell. All baby animals remember their mother’s smell. Studies have show that even with human babies, if you give them a blanket that smells like mom, they will calm down. They remember the scent as being mom, and the one who takes care of them. Not too long ago, I saw an episode of the TV show “My Strange Addiction,” and one of the patients sucked her thumb and carried around the last remnant of her baby blanket wrapped around her fingers (mind you, she was at least 20 years old). She told the therapist that the reason she carried the blanket threads was so that she could smell it. The scent reminded her of her past when her life was more care-free, and it comforted her.
I found it really fascinating that autobiographical memory is enhanced more by scent than by any of the other sense, even beginning before birth. The article stated an example that children who's mothers smoked while pregnant are less likely to be repulsed by the scent of cigarettes than children who were not exposed to the scent. I have often caught a scent that triggered something familiar to me, but I was unable to place why it was familiar. I wonder if that could be attributed to this phenomenon. It's really amazing to me that you can essentially remember a scent from inside of the womb, or from an early state of childhood that you otherwise would not be able to remember.
I think this is so interesting because of what it must imply about the past: if scent has the strongest connection to memory, humans needed to use it so much more than they do today. Now it seems like it's just being used to remind us of Christmas with pine trees or a lost love with a perfume, etc. However, it seems like if anyone had to give up one of the five senses, smell would definitely go before sight or hearing, since we are a society based on that. Maybe it's different in other parts of the world, though, where those things are not as necessary? It's interesting, too, that they have not tried to manipulate it. It would be curious to set people up in a situation, a personal sort of event that requires a recall, and see if a distinct smell helps them recall details... more specific than pencil attributes, but how much it could actually help in say... court cases?
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