Saive Anne-Lise, Royet Jean-Pierre, Ravel Nadine, Thévenet Marc, Garcia Samuel, Plailly Jane
Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, CNRS UMR 5292 - INSERM U1028 - University Lyon1 Lyon, France.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2014 Jun 6;8:203. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00203. eCollection 2014.
We behaviorally explore the link between olfaction, emotion and memory by testing the hypothesis that the emotion carried by odors facilitates the memory of specific unique events. To investigate this idea, we used a novel behavioral approach inspired by a paradigm developed by our team to study episodic memory in a controlled and as ecological as possible way in humans. The participants freely explored three unique and rich laboratory episodes; each episode consisted of three unfamiliar odors (What) positioned at three specific locations (Where) within a visual context (Which context). During the retrieval test, which occurred 24-72 h after the encoding, odors were used to trigger the retrieval of the complex episodes. The participants were proficient in recognizing the target odors among distractors and retrieving the visuospatial context in which they were encountered. The episodic nature of the task generated high and stable memory performances, which were accompanied by faster responses and slower and deeper breathing. Successful odor recognition and episodic memory were not related to differences in odor investigation at encoding. However, memory performances were influenced by the emotional content of the odors, regardless of odor valence, with both pleasant and unpleasant odors generating higher recognition and episodic retrieval than neutral odors. Finally, the present study also suggested that when the binding between the odors and the spatio-contextual features of the episode was successful, the odor recognition and the episodic retrieval collapsed into a unique memory process that began as soon as the participants smelled the odors.
我们通过测试以下假设，从行为学角度探究嗅觉、情感和记忆之间的联系：气味所携带的情感有助于对特定独特事件的记忆。为了研究这一观点，我们采用了一种新颖的行为学方法，该方法受到我们团队开发的一种范式的启发，旨在以可控且尽可能贴近生态的方式研究人类的情景记忆。参与者自由探索三个独特且丰富的实验室情景；每个情景由三种不熟悉的气味（是什么）组成，这些气味放置在视觉环境（何种环境）中的三个特定位置（在哪里）。在编码后24 - 72小时进行的检索测试中，气味被用于触发对复杂情景的检索。参与者能够熟练地在干扰物中识别目标气味，并回忆起遇到这些气味时的视觉空间环境。该任务的情景性质产生了高且稳定的记忆表现，同时伴随着更快的反应以及更慢且更深的呼吸。成功的气味识别和情景记忆与编码时对气味的探究差异无关。然而，记忆表现受到气味情感内容的影响，无论气味的效价如何，愉悦和不愉悦的气味都比中性气味产生更高的识别率和情景检索率。最后，本研究还表明，当气味与情景的空间背景特征之间的绑定成功时，气味识别和情景检索会合并为一个独特的记忆过程，一旦参与者闻到气味就开始启动。
