The investigation of specific lexical categories has substantially contributed to advancing our knowledge on how meaning is neurally represented. One sensory domain that has received particularly little attention is olfaction. This study aims to investigate the neural representation of lexical olfaction. In an fMRI experiment, participants read olfactory metaphors, their literal paraphrases, and literal olfactory sentences. Regions of interest were defined by a functional localizer run of odor processing. We observed activation in secondary olfactory areas during metaphorical and literal olfactory processing, thus extending previous findings to the novel source domain of olfaction. Previously reported enhanced activation in emotion-related areas due to metaphoricity could not be replicated. Finally, no primary olfactory cortex was found active during lexical olfaction processing. We suggest that this absence is due to olfactory hedonicity being crucial to understand the meaning of the current olfactory expressions. Consequently, the processing of olfactory hedonicity recruits secondary olfactory areas.

Findings of empirical studies of spatial memory using maps are direct responses to the successful transfer and processing of map information. The memory performance of map users is an important indication of the quality of a map design. Studies of spatial memory have mainly relied on recall performances, but maps can be used in various ways depending on the map user's task and applied strategy. Therefore, one memory paradigm does not cover the entire spectrum of options for examining the retrieval of map information. Three different experiments were designed to analyze and compare memory performances using different map information in recall and recognition (combining episodic and semantic memory) paradigms. The results demonstrate that map complexity, as varied by the amount of displayed map detail, contributes significantly to memory performance. Moreover, memory enhancement affected by map-structuring elements (grids) depends on the respective paradigm and also on the visual appearance of the structuring elements. Both paradigms for examining the influence of map information on cognitive processing can be applied specifically to analyze the efficiency of map designs. On the basis of the different effects of map information, a reasoned application of these paradigms to test map designs is indispensable.

No abstract

It is commonly agreed upon a strong link between emotion and olfaction. Odor-evoked memories are experienced as more emotional compared with verbal, visual, and tactile stimuli. Moreover, the emotional quality of odor cues increases memory performance, but contrary to this, odors are poor retrieval cues for verbal labels. To examine the relation between the emotional quality of an odor and its likelihood of identification, this study evaluates how normative emotion ratings based on the 3-dimensional affective space model (that includes valence, arousal, and dominance), using the Self-Assessment Manikin by Bradley and Lang (Bradley MM, Lang PJ. 1994. Measuring emotion: the Self-Assessment Manikin and the Semantic Differential. J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 25(1):49-59.) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Watson D, Clark LA, Tellegen A. 1988. Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. J Pers Soc Psychol. 54(6):1063-1070.) predict the identification of odors in a multiple choice condition. The best fitting logistic regression model includes squared valence and dominance and thus, points to a significant role of specific emotional features of odors as a main clue for odor identification.