Numerous studies have now shown that autobiographical memories triggered by odors feel much more emotional, activate the neurolobiological substrates of emotional processing, and that people are more brought to the original time and place of their memories compared to when the same events are recalled through other modalities. The most distinctive characteristics of odor-evoked memories, however, and why they are important to human health and wellbeing is that they evoke more emotional and evocative recollections than memories triggered by any other cue. Notably, odor-evoked memories have been shown to be more rare, less frequently thought about, and from an earlier time in life, specifically clustered in the first decade compared with memories evoked by verbal or visual stimuli. Odor-evoked memories possess several characteristics that distinguish them from memories evoked by stimuli perceived through other sensory modalities (for reviews see. Odor-evoked memory or the “Proust phenomenon” from the eponymous literary anecdote where Marcel Proust took a bite of madeleine biscuit that had been dipped in Linden tea and was suddenly transported to a long forgotten moment in his childhood, occurs when an odor triggers the recollection of a meaningful past personal episode. This type of memory has not been directly examined for the ways in which it may be involved in human health, and an effort to do so is the subject of the present article. The second type of odor memory is odor-evoked memory-autobiographical memories and associations that are triggered by odors. For recent reviews of these topics see Doty and Velayudhan. Impairment of odor identification is also a hallmark early symptom and predictor of several neurological disorders, most notably Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Data from a representative sample of over 3000 US community dwelling adults 57 years and older, recently revealed that those who were dysfunctional at odor identification were four times more likely to die within a five year period than their same age peers with normal olfactory abilities. Odor recognition and identification, and in particular its failure, is a critical factor in human health. This form of odor memory is similar to recognizing other sensory semantic cues, such as knowing that a particular sound signifies your dog’s bark.
One is the ability to recognize and remember whether one has smelled an odor before.
Odor memory is a central feature of olfactory cognition, and can be divided into two distinct cognitive-perceptual processes. This article illustrates how through the experimentally validated mechanisms of odor-associative learning and the privileged neuroanatomical relationship that exists between olfaction and the neural substrates of emotion, odors can be harnessed to induce emotional and physiological responses that can improve human health and wellbeing.
Olfactory perception factors and individual difference characteristics that would need to be considered in therapeutic applications of odor-evoked-memory are also discussed. A review of the literature leads to the conclusion that odors that evoke positive autobiographical memories have the potential to increase positive emotions, decrease negative mood states, disrupt cravings, and reduce physiological indices of stress, including systemic markers of inflammation. This article discusses the special features of odor-evoked memory and the current state-of-the-art in odor-evoked memory research to show how these unique experiences may be able to influence and benefit psychological and physiological health.
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