There are two important processes involved in long-term memory. These processes are encoding and retrieval. Encoding involves receiving information that is then delivered into long-term memory. Retrieval involves accessing that information, so it can be used. Many memory problems are problems with retrieval. (Goldstein, 2017). The memories have been encoded, but we simply can’t get them out. An example of this is when we forget a phone number.
Retrieval cues help to assess encoded memories. Retrieval cues are words or other stimuli that allow us to remember these memories. (Goldstein, 2017).
These cues have helped me numerous times. One instance of this stands out above all the rest. I went to the mall one day several years ago. I entered a popular department store and walked towards the fragrance counter. I immediately smelled a cologne that contained hints of lavender and Douglas fir. It was Curve, a cologne that my first love had worn. All the times we had shared came flooding back to me then. I remembered things that I hadn’t in years.
How do smells become part of our long-term memory? Research has shown that the part of the olfactory brain called the piriform cortex is responsible for short term storage of olfactory memories, but researchers wanted to know if this area was responsible for long term storage as well. The latest research reveals that the piriform cortex is involved with storing those memories, but that this process only works if there is interaction with other areas of the brain. (“How Odours Are”, 2017).
During the research, scientists used electric impulses on a rat to stimulate processes that trigger olfactory memory encoding. The pulses varied in frequency and duration and followed protocols that induce long term memories in the hippocampus. However, it was found that these same protocols did nothing to induce these memories in the piriform cortex. Scientists that went on to stimulate the orbitofrontal cortex in the higher brain, and long-term memories were induced in the piriform cortex. This shows that the orbitofrontal cortex must provide instruction to the piriform cortex for long term storage of olfactory memories. (“How Odours Are”, 2017).
Olfactory memories depend on encoding and retrieval just like other types of memories. Retrieval codes assist in helping to assess these encoded memories. It is very interesting to know what parts of the brain are responsible for long term storage of these memories.
References
Goldstein, E.B. (2017). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience (4th edition). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning
How Odours Are Turned into Long-Term Memories. (2017, December 22). Retrieved from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-12-odours-long-term-memories.html
Lovely post colleague!
Interesting that we both posted about olfactory memory. Something very similar happened to me. Like you, the smell of a perfume took me back to a time of my life I had not even thought about probably since t became a part of my past. Our experiences were very similar.
Something I mentioned in my post was how is someone’s olfactory memory affected by suffering from anosmia. All the memories encoded through smell prior the condition are stored, so do they become unretrievable?
Given that our feeling of smell unmistakably has an essential influence in our mental make-up, notwithstanding it being one of the five manners by which we associate with our general surroundings, its nonattendance can have a significant effect. Anosmia sufferers frequently discuss feeling segregated and cut-off from their general surroundings, and encountering a ‘blunting’ of the feelings. Notice misfortune can influence one’s capacity to shape and keep up close individual connections and can prompt misery. An essential issue here is the way that scent misfortune is imperceptible to everything except the patient; how might you realize that you had met an anosmia sufferer unless they themselves let you know? This is one reason, close by the general absence of comprehension of the effect that scent has on our lives, why anosmia has never gotten much consideration – you truly don’t recognize what you have until the point that it is no more.
Backpedaling to the focuses made about the solid association amongst smell and memory, it can be seen that losing one’s feeling of smell can bring about the loss of an imperative nostalgic pathway to recollections. Research has demonstrated that loss of olfactory capacity can be a marker of something much more genuine. Notice misfortune happens with both Parkinson’s ailment and Alzheimer, and studies have demonstrated that a reducing feeling of smell can be an early indication of the beginning of the two conditions, happening quite a long while before engine aptitude issues create.
What are your thoughts about this? Could you imagine not being able to retrieve those memories through your sense of smell? Do they disappear or do they remain?