Smells can trigger emotional memories, study finds A team from Utrecht University in The Netherlands recruited 70 female students and played them video footage designed to provoke aversion, such as car accidents and reports on the Rwandan genocide. While the film was played, the smell of cassis was pumped into the room, coloured lights were directed onto the back wall and neutral music was played in the background. A week later, the participants were asked to recall their memories of the film while exposed to either the same smell, lights or sounds used in the initial screening. Those who were given the cassis smell remembered more details about the film and found their memories more unpleasant and arousing than those who had the background music as a memory trigger, although the lights and the smell were equally effective. Researchers said there was no difference between the triggers in two other categories measuring how evocative and vivid the memories were. Re-testing participants after a longer period than one week could produce more distinctive results, they said. The team wrote in the Cognition and Emotion journal that the findings "do not confirm the Proust phenomenon," but said the findings could prove useful for research into post-traumatic stress disorder, which causes patients to recall vivid and painful experiences. They added: "Our findings do extend previous research by demonstrating that odour is a stronger trigger of detailed and arousing memories than music, which has often been held to provide equally powerful triggers as odours." Source: Christian Jarrett, Research Digest