Some Experiments on the Associative Power of Smells

Acquisition and retention of verbal associations to olfactory and abstract visual stimuli of varying similarity.

“…At the beginning of the present century several investigators compared verbal association to odors and pictures as stimuli (Bolger & Titchener, 1907;Heywood & Vortriede, 1905). Bolger and Titchener (1907) observed that odors "were distinctively less effective than simple geometric figures" (p. 327) as stimuli for verbal as-sociates. The present report corroborates these earlier findings.…”

Part or parcel? Contextual binding of events in episodic memory

“…Such a role might reflect the direct connections between primary olfactory regions and the hippocampus (Dade et al 2002). However, scientific evidence rather undermined this notion (Bolger and Titchener 1907;Davis 1975;Rubin et al 1984;Herz 1998). The only evidence for privileged olfactory cueing of memory comes from Chu and Downes (2002) who found that solely odour cues enhance autobiographical memory retrieval in a second retrieval attempt (following a first memory search cued by a label) compared with other cues.…”

The Experimental Contributions of General Psychology.

“…Heywood and Vortriede, and Harris used immediate recall tests; they found that odors had no special associative power, but that any kind of incidental affective-tone reported on the basis of introspection seemed to facilitate recall. There were two other similar studies; Bolger and Titchener's (75), which was inconclusive; and Kenneth's (76), which showed that in many cases olfactory stimuli, but not the affective-tone, aroused forgotten experiences. Gordon, who used immediate recall, found no preference for P over U, and concluded: "If any difference has been shown it is in favor of the unpleasant, but we are inclined to doubt the validity of this difference" (p. 239).…”