Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
BioTechMed, Graz, Austria.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2020 May;41(7):1904-1919. doi: 10.1002/hbm.24920. Epub 2020 Jan 6.
Odors can increase memory performance when presented as context during both encoding and retrieval phases. Since information from different sensory modalities is integrated into a unified conceptual knowledge, we hypothesize that the social information from body odors and faces would be integrated during encoding. The integration of such social information would enhance retrieval more so than when the encoding occurs in the context of common odors. To examine this hypothesis and to further explore the underlying neural correlates of this behavior, we have conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in which participants performed an encoding-retrieval memory task for faces during the presentation of common odor, body odor or clean air. At the behavioral level, results show that participants were less biased and faster in recognizing faces when presented in concomitance with the body odor compared to the common odor. At the neural level, the encoding of faces in the body odor condition, compared to common odor and clean air conditions, showed greater activation in areas related to associative memory (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), odor perception and multisensory integration (orbitofrontal cortex). These results suggest that face and body odor information were integrated and as a result, participants were faster in recognizing previously presented material.
当气味在编码和检索阶段都作为背景出现时,它可以提高记忆表现。由于来自不同感觉模态的信息被整合到一个统一的概念知识中,我们假设来自体臭和面部的社会信息将在编码过程中被整合。这种社会信息的整合会比在常见气味的背景下进行编码时更能增强检索。为了检验这一假设,并进一步探索这种行为的潜在神经相关性,我们进行了一项功能性磁共振成像研究,参与者在呈现常见气味、体臭或清洁空气的同时,执行面孔的编码-检索记忆任务。在行为水平上,结果表明,与常见气味相比,当呈现体臭时,参与者对面孔的识别偏差更小,速度也更快。在神经水平上,与常见气味和清洁空气条件相比,在体臭条件下对面孔的编码显示出与联想记忆(背外侧前额叶皮层)、气味感知和多感觉整合(眶额皮层)相关的更大激活。这些结果表明,面部和体臭信息被整合,因此,参与者对面孔的识别速度更快。