This coming Monday, Joan Tarrida, from Dynamics of memory formation group, will be presenting the talk:
Olor-M : Impact of Odor valence in memory Systems
Substantial work in both rodents and humans revealed functional and physiological relationships between olfaction and memory systems. However, it remains unclear whether the hedonic valence of an odor plays a role in memory. To bridge this gap in the literature, the current study examined whether the hedonic valence of an odorant stimulus affects the ability to remember a paired item. On each trial, participants were presented with one of three odors (L-Carvone, N-Butanol, clean air), followed by a picture (Animal or Object). The hedonic valence of each odorant stimulus was rated by the participant on a Likert type scale from 1 (“very unpleasant”) to 7 (“very pleasant”) at the end of each trial. After 48 hours, participants completed a recognition test of the encoded pictures. Behavioral results showed that the odor and the hedonic rating of each odor (as rated by the participant) predicted confidence on the recognition test. In turn, confidence significantly predicted whether the item was remembered or not. Additionally, we used representational similarity analysis of scalp electroencephalography recordings during encoding, and we found a reactivation of the pattern elicited by the odor when the picture was presented. This effect was only significant for the trials where the odor was rated as unpleasant. These results suggest that odor information is bounded together with visual information presented seconds later, and that the hedonic quality of the odor also plays a role in remembering contiguous visual information.
Location: Online (ZOOM). Click here to join the meeting