Tag: Memory

Process of smell & memory
01 Smell enters nose
02 Travels through cranial nerve to olfactory bulb (part of limbic, emotional center of brain)
03 Olfactory bulb easily accesses the amygdala, sparks nostalgia

Smell can trigger emotional memories
– “Proustian phenomenon” – distinctive smells have more power than any other sense to help us recall distant memories.
– Smells trigger more detailed, arousing and unpleasant memories of painful experiences than sounds.

Why can smells unlock forgotten memories?
– There are at least 1,000 different smell receptor types for detecting smell which allows us to identify many different kinds of smells.
– We are good at describing how things look, or telling how things sound, but with smells we are reduced to labelling them according to things they are associated with (“smells like summer meadows” or “smells like wet dog”, for instance).
– While we have names for colours which mean nothing but the colour, such as “red”, we generally only have names for smells which mean the thing that produces that smell, such as “cedar”, “coconut” or “fresh bread”.
– Rather than visiting the thalamic relay station on its journey into the brain like our other senses, smell information travels directly to the major site of processing – the olfactory bulb – with nothing in between.

 Singapore Through Scents: Scent Mapping Singapore

– Presents different dimension of Singapore using sense of smell.
– A creative art installation which provokes our senses and drives discussion.

Touch that Taste!

– Translates smell and taste into sight and touch, based on five main groups: sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami – a savoury taste.
– Golik asked 10 people to eat and smell food that had been specially prepared to represent each taste group, and attempt to translate their experience of each one into a visual reaction.
– tells a story about how the abstract can be turned into the tangible – about how an experience with food can be translated into a functional collection with a focus on experiencing the objects and creating a relationship with them.

We got to eat chocolate in class today YAY! It was an eye-opening experience eating in the dark (irony intended), it makes the other senses more hyper-aware than usual and I’m glad I’ve discovered some interesting effects of chocolate through this exercise. These are my overall experiences of the three different types of chocolate we had:

Before tasting, I could smell the scent of dark chocolate, with a hint of sweetness. The texture of the chocolate felt smooth and rigid. Upon placing the chocolate in my mouth, I could taste the bittersweetness of dark chocolate, followed by a state of confusion with the slight hint of spiciness that my taste buds were sensing. I confirmed this when I felt the spiciness at the back of my throat, and a tingling sensation on my tongue. The chocolate melted slowly from solid to a liquid state, leaving a strong aftertaste all around my mouth. After the tasting, I realised that it took me quite a while for the spiciness to kick in and it was really unexpected since there was no hint of spiciness when I smelt the chocolate before tasting. It was a unique experience for my taste buds, and I enjoyed the mix of dark chocolate and chilli – two of my favourite things!

Chocolate B:

When I first received the chocolate, I could feel the ridges of the chocolate through the tiny plastic packet. The plastic was smooth in contrast to the texture of the chocolate, and it crinkled upon ripping it apart to retrieve the chocolate piece contained inside. The chocolate smelt like a mixture of sweet and bitter, and I’m not too sure if I was smelling the chocolate too intensely, but I felt a light stinging sensation running through my nostrils. The back of the chocolate felt smooth and consistent, unlike the ridged front that I identified upon receiving the chocolate. I also noticed that the chocolate shape was round, unlike the squared shape of Chocolate A. Upon tasting the chocolate, I realised that it started melting almost immediately, evolving into a thick bittersweet liquid. I felt the ridges slowly disappear, followed by a slightly sour taste. It quickly changed back to a sweet taste before the chocolate became too thin and broke into pieces in my mouth. The eventual aftertaste was bittersweet, and it did not linger as long as the taste of Chocolate A. While reflecting on my experience of the tasting of Chocolate B, I observed that the taste of the chocolate fluctuated between bitter and sweet at varied intervals.

Chocolate C:

When the packet was opened, I smelt a whiff of milk, but couldn’t smell it after, probably because there were too many people gathered around the small opening of the packet. When I reached into the packet to retrieve a piece of chocolate, the first thing I noticed was that there were two different sides. One felt more glossy and smooth, while the other was more matte and rough. I felt tiny particles on the rough textured side of the chocolate. I got really excited because I was expecting it to taste like something I’m familiar with, but haven’t had in a very long time. I felt the uneven ridges of the chocolate and confirmed that it was the familiar texture of a potato chip! I felt the smooth part of the chocolate melt on my palm, and quickly placed it in my mouth to avoid wastage. The crunch sound that was made upon biting on the chocolate was unmistakable, and showed how brittle the chocolate piece was. Strangely, I started to observe the difference in temperature on both sides of the chocolate. The smoother side felt colder, while the rough side was warm. The chocolate slowly became a liquid and solid state at the same time, releasing a sweet and salty combination. After swallowing the most of the chocolate, I felt around my mouth and discovered residues of the beautiful experience on my teeth. Unlike Chocolate A & B, this piece of chocolate did not have a strong and lasting aftertaste, but a slight, subtle, sweet taste was still there from the residues. After the experience, I noticed a mixture of salt and chocolate residue left on my fingers, from the interaction with the chocolate before my consumption.