Introduction

In this activity you will be taken through the procedure used in Herz’s (2004) multimodal study of emotional memory. Visitors to the Smithsonian Institution’s exhibit on “Brain: The World Inside Your Head” were asked to participate in a short experiment in which four different types of cues were used to evoke a memory. The subjects’ job was to rate how emotional, evocative, vivid, and specific the memories elicited by each cue were.

The cues in the original study were a verbal label of an item—popcorn, fresh-cut grass, and campfire—a visual animation of the item, an auditory sound clip representing the item, and an oil-based bead that gave off the scent of the item.

In this activity, we will use just one of the memory items: popcorn. Furthermore, since you probably don’t have access to any popcorn-scented beads, you will have to substitute some real popcorn. Before you begin the activity, run down to the store (or a movie theater) and get some popcorn. Fresh-popped corn would be best (a microwave bag will work just fine), but if you don’t have any way to pop it yourself, just get a bag of popcorn from the junk food aisle.

Move on to Part 1: Verbally-Evoked Memory

Instructions

Follow the on-screen instructions to go through the procedure for Herz’s multi-modal memory cue experiment. You must move through the six parts of the activity in sequence, using the links with the text.

Part 1: Verbally-Evoked Memory

Think of a specific personal memory, concerning a particular person, place, and/or event, that you associate with popcorn. Again, this should be a very specific memory of something you did, someone you met, and/or somewhere you have been.

When you’ve thought of your memory, type a brief description of it in the text box at top-left.

Once you’ve typed out your memory, use the scales below the text box at left to rate your memory on:

• Emotionality: How emotional you feel now as you remember the event?
• Evocativeness: As you think about the memory, how much do you feel brought back to the original time and place when the memory occurred?
• Vividness: How vivid or clear is your memory?
• Specificity: How specific is your memory?

For each question, choose a number from 1 to 9 on the scale at left. For example, if the memory is not clear at all, click “1” for the vividness scale; if it is extremely vivid, click “9”.

Once you have finished your ratings, move on to the next part of the procedure.

Part 2: Visually-Evoked Memory

Examine the images of popcorn shown at left. As you view these popcorn pictures, retrieve the same memory you thought of in Part 1, and then rate this version of the memory on the same four scales as before:

• Emotionality: How emotional you feel now as you remember the event?
• Evocativeness: As you think about the memory, how much do you feel brought back to the original time and place when the memory occurred?
• Vividness: How vivid or clear is your memory?
• Specificity: How specific is your memory?

For each question, choose a point from 1 to 9 on the scale at left. For example, if the memory is not clear at all, click “1” for the vividness scale; if it is extremely clear, click “9”.

Once you have finished your ratings, move on to the next part of the procedure.

Part 3: Auditory-Evoked Memory

Click the large speaker icon at left to play a sound of popcorn popping. As you listen to the sound, retrieve the same memory you thought of in Part 1, and then rate this version of the memory on the same four scales as before:

• Emotionality: How emotional you feel now as you remember the event?
• Evocativeness: As you think about the memory, how much do you feel brought back to the original time and place when the memory occurred?
• Vividness: How vivid or clear is your memory?
• Specificity: How specific is your memory?

For each question, choose a point from 1 to 9 on the scale at left. For example, if the memory is not clear at all, click “1” for the vividness scale; if it is extremely clear, click “9”.

Once you have finished your ratings, move on to the next part of the procedure.

Part 4: Odor-Evoked Memory

Open up the bag of popcorn you have bought (and/or popped), and without looking at it (this is supposed to be a purely olfactory memory cue) take a good long whiff of it. As you smell the popcorn, retrieve the same memory you thought of in Part 1, and then rate this version of the memory on the same four scales as before:

• Emotionality: How emotional you feel now as you remember the event?
• Evocativeness: As you think about the memory, how much do you feel brought back to the original time and place when the memory occurred?
• Vividness: How vivid or clear is your memory?
• Specificity: How specific is your memory?

For each question, choose a point from 1 to 9 on the scale at left. For example, if the memory is not clear at all, click “1” for the vividness scale; if it is extremely clear, click “9”.

Once you have finished your ratings, you are done with the experimental procedure. Click the link to see and read about your results.

Results

The memory description you entered is shown at top-left. Ratings of each memory quality for each cue are given in the table just below the memory. For comparison, the mean ratings given by the 70 subjects in Herz (2004) are given in the bottom table.

As you can see, Herz found that odor-induced memories were rated as significantly more emotional and evocative than memories induced by the other three cue types. On the other two rating scales (vividness and specificity), there were no statistically significant differences between the cue types.

Herz concluded that odors elicit more emotionally potent memories than other cues. She argued that this effect may be driven by neuroanatomy, since olfactory sensory neurons are but one synapse away from the amygdala–hippocampal complex, a brain region that has been implicated in emotional processing and memory by countless studies. You can read more about this theory in the textbook.