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In-Depth Information
The sense of smell is well connected to our
memory. As often quoted in numerous topics,
French writer Marcel Proust (1871-1922) de-
scribed the power of his early sensory experiences
when he translated the taste of the madeleine pastry
and the smell of the tea he remembered from his
childhood into its psychological elements, and
examined how he felt about the dessert and what
it meant for him. In a topic “Proust was a neuro-
scientist” Jonah Lehrer (2007) wrote that Proust
intuited a lot about the structure of our brain. The
insight of the writer was that senses of smell and
taste bear a unique burden of memory. Below is
a fragment of a topic by Marcel Proust (2011),
“Remembrance of Things Past: Swann Way:”
to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that
it was connected with the taste of tea and cake,
but that it infinitely transcended those savours,
could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs.
Whence did it come? What did it signify? How
could I seize upon and define it? … Undoubtedly
what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being
must be the image, the visual memory which, be-
ing linked to that taste, has tried to follow it into
my conscious mind.
One may ponder how much the beliefs and
expectations concerning sensual qualities have
the power to build perceived experiences and the
resulting physiological and psychological effects.
Rachel Herz (2009) explored the sentimental
ways of perception and reaction to the sensory
stimuli and examined the olfactory effects on
mood, physiology, and behavior. She outlined an
explanatory model for how odors produce emo-
tional, cognitive, behavioral, and physiological
responses, and concluded that of the two theoretical
mechanisms that have been proposed to explain
these effects: pharmacology or psychology, a
psychological explanation could best account
for the data obtained in the experimental studies.
Aromatherapy is a folkloric tradition asserting
the beneficial properties of various plant-based
aromas on mood, behavior, and “wellness.” It is
true that many plants have therapeutic proper-
ties, for example, lavender may decrease heart
rate, improve subjective mood, and reduce stress,
anxiety, depression, and insomnia. However, the
experimental results obtained by Herz illustrate
that it is the perceived quality and the meaning
of the aroma that induces psychological and/or
physiological responses, while the chemical nature
of the odorant itself plays a secondary role in the
emotional and subjective changes that occur in
the presence of an odor. For example, lavender,
which is a culturally denoted “relaxing” odor, when
prescribed as a stimulant, was able to elicit stimula-
tory effects in heart rate, skin conductance, and a
self-reported mood. According to the psychologi-
Many years had elapsed during which nothing of
Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre
and the drama of my going to bed there, had any
existence for me, when one day in winter, as I
came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold,
offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily
take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular
reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one
of those short, plump little cakes called 'petites
madeleines,' which look as though they had
been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's
shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull
day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I
raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I
had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had
the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched
my palate than a shudder ran through my whole
body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary
changes that were taking place. An exquisite
pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual,
detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And
at once the vicissitudes of life had become indif-
ferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity
illusory-this new sensation having had on me the
effect which love has of filling me with a precious
essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it
was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre,
accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come
