de Bruijn Maaike J, Bender Michael
a Department of Social Psychology , Tilburg University , Tilburg , The Netherlands.
b Gratia Christian College , Kowloon , Hong Kong.
Memory. 2018 Apr;26(4):547-558. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2017.1381744. Epub 2017 Oct 2.
Folk wisdom often refers to odours as potent triggers for autobiographical memory, akin to the Proust phenomenon that describes Proust's sudden recollection of a childhood memory when tasting a madeleine dipped into tea. Despite an increasing number of empirical studies on the effects of odours on cognition, conclusive evidence is still missing. We set out to examine the effectiveness of childhood and non-childhood odours as retrieval cues for autobiographical memories in a lab experiment. A total of 170 participants were presented with pilot-tested retrieval cues (either odours or images) to recall childhood memories and were then asked to rate the vividness, detail, and emotional intensity of these memories. Results showed that participants indeed reported richer memories when presented with childhood-related odours than childhood-related images or childhood-unrelated odours or images. An exploratory analysis of memory content with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count did not reveal differences in affective content. The findings of this study support the notion that odours are particularly potent in eliciting rich memories and open up numerous avenues for further exploration.
民间智慧常常将气味视为自传体记忆的有力触发因素，类似于普鲁斯特现象，即描述了普鲁斯特在品尝浸过茶的玛德琳蛋糕时突然回忆起童年记忆。尽管关于气味对认知影响的实证研究越来越多，但确凿的证据仍然缺失。我们着手在一项实验室实验中检验童年气味和非童年气味作为自传体记忆检索线索的有效性。总共170名参与者被给予经过预测试的检索线索（气味或图像）以回忆童年记忆，然后被要求对这些记忆的生动程度、细节和情感强度进行评分。结果表明，与呈现与童年相关的图像、与童年无关的气味或图像相比，当呈现与童年相关的气味时，参与者确实报告了更丰富的记忆。使用语言查询和字数统计对记忆内容进行的探索性分析没有揭示情感内容上的差异。这项研究的结果支持了这样一种观点，即气味在引发丰富记忆方面特别有效，并为进一步探索开辟了许多途径。
