THE ESSENTIAL
- The smell and taste of food related to a significant event in the past might help to better recall memories.
- The researchers made, using 3D printing, tailor-made replicas of the smell and taste of food associated with the memories of each participant in the study.
- This technology might be interesting to study in the context of the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
We are familiar with the phenomenon of “Proust’s madeleine”, described by the narrator of the first volume ofIn Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. A taste, that of a madeleine in the novel, which suddenly sends us back to the memory of a scene from our past, as if we were traveling through time.
But taste is not the only sense capable of taking us through the years in an instant. The sense of smell would also have this power. Think, for example, of the smell of modeling clay or pots of glue that can send you straight back to the classrooms of your childhood, or that of a dish that particularly marked you in the past.
The power of taste and smell on memory studied by researchers
Researchers at Lancaster University in the UK wanted to know, through their new study, if the smell and taste of food might actually bring us back to old buried memories. Their results were published in the journal Human Computer Interaction.
Working with 12 older adults, they collected 72 memories, half involving food and half unrelated to food. Among these tantalizing memories, some participants cited, for example, that of a grilled mackerel served on the occasion of golden weddings or that of strawberries eaten in the hospital following childbirth.
The researchers worked with the participants to create bespoke replicas of the foods associated with each person’s memories. These replicas, made using 3D printing, were shaped like small balls of edible gel and perfectly copied the smell and flavor of the original food. They were thus easier to swallow and had more intense flavors, without the need for special ingredients and preparation.
Olfactory memory: “Suddenly, I was back on the spot”
After exposure to these followingshocks, the participants were able to recount their memory much better, with more precision regarding the details of the scene and the emotions they had felt at the time. Professor Corina Sas, who conducted the study, said in a communiqué what “the 3D-printed smell and flavors prompted memory retrieval, eliciting positive emotional experiences, with rich and intense sensations, which participants deeply enjoyed”.
In the report of the study, the accounts of the memories were indeed significantly enriched in detail compared to the first evocation before the experience. One participant even states, regarding a memory of roast beef recalled by the replica made by the researchers, that he “was taken back 25 years in a single leap”. “I might sit at the table in the room… Suddenly, I was back on the spot”, he adds. The latter is amazed by the effectiveness of the phenomenon: “It just triggers a few more sensations. And yet when you taste it, you see yourself there once more.”
Alzheimer’s disease: reconstructing memories through smell and taste?
This technology might be important in the treatment of dementia. A woman, whose mother took part in the experiment when she had Alzheimer’s disease, said that “As soon as she smelled and tasted the food, she would say something like, ‘Oh, this is like food from the old days. It takes me back in time.’ she had lived a long time ago.”
Another participant also suggested creating a food-related memory album to allow people with dementia to reconstruct their memories of past events.
