Implicit Memory for Odors: A Possible Method for Observation

Abstract

In an experiment 143 subjects were instructed to assign odors to contexts which were displayed in a slide session. The slides depicted contexts from three areas of everyday life which partly contained visual cues related to a presented odor. After rating the fit of each odor to a context, the subjects rated the odors for pleasantness. Analysis showed a strong influence of the visual cue on the rating of fit for the contexts containing an odor-related visual element. In contexts without a visual cue, rating of fit showed an influence of implicitly learned memories of odor. The rating was not affected by the pleasantness of the odors. The 1995 work of Schab and Crowder is critically reviewed, and results are discussed within the framework of new, more ecologically oriented research on memory for odor.