How smells can evoke memories
Smells can evoke memories because of experience. At the same time, smells are very much a part of our brain’s “natural” instinct. These two, instinct and experience, when taken together can explain how smells evoke memories.
Every human action is either dictated by instinct or by experience. The senses, therefore, play a vital role in reconciling those two methods. First, the senses themselves are naturally connected to the brain: they communicate in such a way that is spontaneous; we do not need to tell our brain to think about the smell. Our brains will immediately tell us, this is sweet-smelling or this smells awful. On the other hand, our senses are very much regulated, or rather affected, by our experiences: we can take, for example, our sense of touch and its relation to temperature (specifically, heat). We know not to touch something that looks hot because we have probably done it before.
There is some debate as to whether or not experience plays a large or small role in determining how our senses work. In that same example of touch and temperature, we can also say that we know not to touch something that looks hot because it simply looks undesirable to touch. That thought is not dictated by experience. So, what does the evocation of memories through smell have to do with instinct or experience?
Experience, unlike instinct, is very familiar. We remember what happens to us, and that may be part of instinct, but what matters is that, whether the event is good or bad, they remain tucked away in our minds. This is also related to learning. However, smells evoking memories is a difficult matter to assess because each person’s mind categorizes and remembers a smell differently from the next person. So, a person may love the smell of gingerbread because he remembers his grandmother through that smell, but another person may hate gingerbread because of a traumatic experience.
Memories are, therefore, largely affected by the senses. It has been said that man exerts passions (desires) towards his environment and his environment exerts experiences back. This constant interplay of man and his environment ultimately create a mind that is rather dependent on the outside world. Thus, the mind, because of constant stimulation from the outside, creates this inward experiences and stores them away in the form of memories. Smell, unlike touch and taste but very much like sound, is unseen. This invisibility gives it a metaphysical character. However, it’s easier to note that smell is often associated with two extremes (whether the initial whiff of that smell was a good experience or bad experience) and this is how they are translated into memory.
Leave a Comment