Have you ever been somewhere, and smelled a certain scent that suddenly takes you back to a fond memory? Well, this is something that happens to me quite frequently. Whether it is the smell of a type of food that I ate at a dinner party or family dinner, or a season like Fall or Summer, scent has a strong impact on the way I remember life events. This got me to thinking, why do certain smells trigger memories?
A website that deals with psychological effects, Fifth Sense, reported that smell has the strongest link to memory, more so than any of the other senses. Olfactory Function helps link the sense of smell that you obtain to a memory. Many times, this happens spontaneously or unexpectedly.
Researchers have found that the formation of autobiographical memory starts to take place between the ages of 15 and 30. Marisa Larsson, of Stockholm University, says that this makes sense because, “it’s when people are going to college, getting married, and starting to establish themselves in the world.”
Larsson started testing different ages of people on this theory. She first had to choose smells that were not everyday, common scents. For example, she did not use coffee because people smell coffee everyday, and would not link back to a specific memory. Larsson ended up choosing scents like lily of the valley, chlorine cloves, and tar. She chose tar because, “it is an odor that is related to wood and Springtime,”. Even if people would have smelled that scent in later years, they think of early memories.
After completing this study, Larsson linked that early memories comes from one of the main functions of smell, to warn us about things that could be harmful or dangerous. For example, if you ate something previously and got sick right after, every time you smell that scent again you think about when you got sick and do not want to eat it.
Emotions also have a large impact on smell. This is how the perfume industry comes up with the many scents: power, desire, sweet, sultry, or clean. There have been studies that these connections can be seen through the brain.
Emotions and scent also play a large part in our attraction to others. There has been a large amount of research that has shown that our scent or body odour, the smell produced by the genes which make up the immune system, plays a large part in how/why we choose our partners (subconsciously).
Conclusion
Smell and Memory have a strong connection and has been proven to have a connection unlike memory and the other senses. It can help bring back memories from the past or from your childhood. So, the next time you smell a certain scent and it makes you remember an event from the past, don’t be alarmed because this is completely normal and something that everyone has probably experienced.
Works Cited
This is a very interesting blog as it explores the sense of smell and some functions of it. I seldom relate smell to past memories but I also relate smell with other feelings, especially the smell of food, which makes me more hungry every time I smell it. To me, it seems like recalling the past can be some kind of showing of emotion as well, maybe something similar to nostalgia. I do wonder if the past memory will affect our distinction on “good” and “bad” smell.