Job Discussion Forums

[lall]

I�ve been buying a lot of books, both new and old, recently. Most of them are for my son who�s beginning his teenage years and I plan to ship them to him through my brother, who�s flying in for the F1.

Having nothing to do, I got down to reading one of them (an old book picked up at the used books counter at the church at Manama) that contained those short adventure stories for boys.

I noticed that the musty smell of that old book took me back in time much more than any of the stories did.

I�ve commonly noticed that, as far as I�m concerned, smells bring back nostalgic moments more strongly that sights or sounds do.

Is this generally true or is it only me?

Note to kaw and scot47: Did the rounds of the Jashanmal Bookshop at Seef Mall, the Al Batra Bookshop, the Family Bookshop and the National Bookshop. Haven't visited the shops in Adliya or the BSPCA Thrift Shop, yet. Thanks for the inf.

[johnslat]

Dear lall,
Yes, smells trigger memory as no other sense can:

"The connection between odor, memory and emotion has an anatomical basis. The primary olfactory cortex, which receives information about smells from nerves in the nose, links directly to the amygdala, which controls expression and experience of emotion, and the hippocampus, which controls the consolidation of memories.
Odor-evoked memories may seem clearer or more intense than other memories because they appear to be more emotional than memories triggered by visual, audio or other types of cues, Herz finds. While odors don?t help people recall more information, the memories they evoke are more emotionally laden, her research suggests.
In one set of studies, she and University of Toronto psychologist Gerald Cupchik, PhD, studied the ability of undergraduates to recall a series of paintings when cued either with words or with odors. In the study phase of the experiment, each participant saw a series of 16 emotionally evocative paintings. Half the paintings were paired with one of eight odors, including peppermint, iso-amyl acetate and lemon oil, and half were paired with verbal labels of the same odors: peppermint, banana or lemon.
Two days later, participants returned to the laboratory and, when presented with the same cues they had experienced during the study session they were asked to recall the painting that had been paired with that cue and write a short description of it.
Participants recalled just as many paintings when they were cued with odor labels as when they were cued with actual odors, the researchers found. However, participants rated and described memories of paintings cued by odors as being more emotional than memories cued by verbal labels.
In a follow-up study, Herz found that memories for paintings associated with smells were more emotional than memories associated with touch or vision?the smell of an apple versus the touch or sight of an apple, for example. This makes sense because none of the other senses is as directly or intensely linked to the brain?s emotion and memory centers as smell, says Herz.


http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan98/smell.html

Regards,
John

[veiledsentiments]

Personally I notice that sounds seem to work better for me... namely music. All it takes is a song from the past to bring back the feelings of the time it was popular. Gene Pitney... the Beach Boys... the Beatles... Eagles... They can take me through years of memories.

I find that smells seem to refer me back to childhood while music covers so many more years of memories.

VS

[lall]