Everyday Musings > A nose for memory

My life is pervaded by smells. I have memories and attachments to each one of them. Wet earth reminds me of Delhi, and childhood, and dancing in the rain. Tulsi tea of quiet evenings and afternoons by my window. A whiff of Gold Flake in an elevator reminds me of an old love. Dad's suitcase smell after a trip abroad reminds me of gifts. Freshly ground coffee of my tam-bram friend's home. Chandan of my trips to the Guruvayur temple. I often dig my nose into old books, new books, soft baby hair, fresh bread, freshly washed linen, even green leaves on my planters. Each has a memory so distinct.

I've read that Real estate agents often bake fresh bread in the oven before showing prospective buyers a house, so that the smell reminds customers of coming home, and the deal is closed happily and quickly. Retail stores often use smells to imprint a picture of the brand. I dug a little on why the nose is connected to the memory box. This is what came up.

'The connection between odour, 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.'

Whew! Something simpler would be nice. Well, I dug again. And saw this. 'When you first smell a new scent, you link it to an event, a person, a thing or even a moment. Your brain forges a link between the smell and a memory -- associating the smell of chlorine with summers at the pool or lilies with a funeral.'

Hmm...that would explain why the smell of basil reminds me of my grandma, or why nothing but CK Truth smells like me. German researchers in a study also showed that smells can reinforce brain-learning pathways. A theory supported by psychologist Gerald Cupchik, PhD who studied the ability of undergrads to recall a series of paintings when cued either with words or with odors. 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. Herz found that memories for paintings associated with smells were more emotional than memories associated with touch or vision, i.e the smell of an apple versus the touch or sight of an apple. Wonder what that would mean for furniture or architecture. Could buildings be associated with smell? Would that make people who live in them happier, or if it's an office, more productive?

No mention of smell would be complete without Proust. So I end with him. In his 'Remembrance of things past', he wrote of smell and how it brought back the memory of the past. On this occasion, after having a cake dipped in light aromatic tea. "In that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, all from my cup of tea."