Smelling Memories

My article!

The human sense of smell is greater than we thought it was. When we smell certain scents we are able to associate that scent with memories, good and bad. According to Theresa L. White, a professor at Le Moyne College, “People often do say that the sense of smell conjures up memories so well that they feel as if they were experiencing the event again.” A study at Northwestern Medicine has concluded that a neural basis in the brain is why the brain associates memories with certain smells. Pamela Dalton, an experimental psychologist at Monell Chemical Senses center stated that “Our experience with odors is typically where odor is the backdrop or context for a person, place, or emotional state." This is how certain memories can be revived when a specific odor is present, allowing us to feel the emotions we felt at the time the memory first occurred. It was discovered that the sense of smell's link to memory best works with episodic memory, personal experiences, and not other types of memory, such as recalling words given to repeat later in the week. Our sense of smell and how it connects us to memories continues to blow my mind, and I find it so fascinating how our brain is able to connect these odors with memories we may have experienced years ago.