Effect of verbal cues on recognition memory and pleasantness evaluation of unfamiliar odors

Abstract

The experiment investigated the effect of verbal cues on recognition memory for unfamiliar odors. 58 participants learned 20 odors of chemical substances. The control group learned the odors without accompanying verbal labels whereas two other groups learned the odors with accompanying verbal labels. The labels referred to relatively pleasant or unpleasant odor sources. On a memory test, administered 15 min. and also 1 wk. after the learning phase, participants were asked to recognize 10 learned odors from 10 unlearned odors and to evaluate each odor's pleasantness. Analysis showed (a) the verbal labels did not facilitate recognition of the unfamiliar odors, (b) recognition performance was lower after 1 wk. than after 15 min., and (c) rated pleasantness tended to be affected by the verbal label assigned to the odor in the learning phase.