Science proves: The smell smells, the longer the memory

Recent research from the Department of Psychology at New York University shows that memories will last longer when people experience an incident and smell unpleasant odors. This finding allows us to better understand the mechanisms that reinforce memory and how negative experiences promote the ability to recall past events.

Catherine Hartley explained: " These results have proven that odors can enhance memory in the whole bar, " explains Catherine Hartley, lead author of the study. adolescents and adults, thereby pointing out new ways to learn how people learn and remember positive and negative experiences . "

Alexandra Cohen - a New York University postdoctoral researcher and co-author added: " Because our findings target different age groups, this study shows that scent Discomfort can be leveraged in the future to examine the learning process and emotional memorization during the development process . "

Bad experiences are thought to affect our memory. For example, if you get bitten by a dog, you will form a bad memory about that animal - and that negative relationship can eventually cause you to hate dogs in general. It is possible, you will remember the accident more vividly and honestly than the contact with other dogs in the past due to the injury you encountered back then.

Odor has the ability to enhance memory in both adolescents and adults.(Illustration).

Hartley said: " Memory expansion and persistence when considering negative memories are the core characteristics of anxiety disorders that often occur in adolescence ."

To better understand how these negative experiences form the way our memories form in this age group, the team designed and conducted a conditioned reflex test for objects from 13 to 25 years old. With these tests, experts will often use insignificant electric shocks; however, here the researchers have used odors because they are moral when studying children.

In the test, the photos are divided into two categories: objects (such as chairs) and scenes (for example, a snow-covered mountain). Participants wear masks that are connected to the olfactory meter (a device used to detect odors and measure odor dilution) when viewed. When viewing images that belong to a category, the objects are smelling the air without scents. When subjects view images from another category, the device will produce an unpleasant odor that circulates to the mask.

To identify the scent that made the participants feel uncomfortable, the researchers gave the subjects breathed in various odors and indicated which smell made them uncomfortable before the study. These smells are a mixture of chemical compounds made by a local perfume specialist and include smells like rotten fish and feces.

This allows the team to quantify the effects of odors on personal memories as well as links to recent images. In other words, scientists can calculate if the image of the chair is remembered longer when it comes to the smell and whether this happens only for that image or the general images. The team measured the amount of sweat from the participant's hand to measure stimulus levels. After one day of conducting the experiment, the experts examined the memory of the pictures of the subjects.

The results showed that both adolescents and adults remember the images that were accompanied by a better smell after 24 hours of testing. Experts also found that those with higher levels of stimulation when viewing images were able to come up with smells remembering better photos after 24 hours regardless of whether the scent was actually circulated or not. This proves that unexpected experiences related to research results make people remember better.