Jun 16

Memory in our Lives – By Marcos (7C)

                                                             Scents and memories

Do you know what memory is? Memory is the mental capacity of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions and of recognizing or remembering past experiences. There are many senses connected to memories and one of them is the sense of smell, which can bring many memories and change the mood or your work performance. Is smell important? Yes, because it is part of evolution and the survival of the fittest for our species in the past.

The sense of smellCAT-SMELL-FLOWER-I THINK IT IS A ROSE- IMAGE-FOR-FEATURE

As reported by Medical Dictionary online, the sense of smell is the ability to perceive and distinguish odors. When someone scents a nostalgic smell, they remember something from the past. Something that moved the person or is familiar.

How can smell improve memories?

Smell is the sense closest linked to memory. Studies proved that people can remember a scent with 65% accuracy after 1 year! Dr. Alan Hirsch, a doctor from Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundations, LTD, has researched about the topic and concluded: “The part of the brain that smells and tastes is part of the emotional brain where our personality lies.”

A personal experience

In my past experiences, my friend’s mouth smelled like milk and I didn’t like it. On the other hand, when I drink milk, I remember this friend that is already in another school.

Fragrances

According to Ambius online, lavender fragrances are used in nursing homes and emergency rooms to calm down patients and worried visitors. Pleasurable fragrances are used in stores, to create  a more pleasant “dwell-time” and make costumers buy more.

Conclusion

Summing up, the sense of smell is essential to our lives. It can change our emotions and bring nostalgic memories. It is important to hospitals as well, because relaxing fragrances can help visitors be patient. In general, smells are useful and necessary to our health and brain.

 

Sources:

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/

http://www.ambius.com/blog/5-ways-smell-influences-your-everyday-life/

Jun 16

Is Smell Important? By Lara A. (7C)

smell picture posibility 4 cuttestsmell picture posibility 5 puppie

Is smell important?

Have you ever thought about this question carefully?  No? So, now take a moment to think about it. Is it important for you? Can you imagine yourself without it? Is it useful?

Memory

First, before talking about the sense of smell, I will mention some facts concerning memory. Memory is the ability we have to recall information and past experiences. Now you are probably thinking why is she talking about memory if the project is about smell? This is the answer for your question: our sense of smell is to some extent linked to our memory, probably more than any other sense. Sometimes our olfactory sense can be linked to a memory, like for example someone’s perfume.

What is smell?

According to Schacter et al., the smell is detected by the neurons that we have in our nose that are identified by a part of our brain. The smell consists of molecules in the air caused by fluid-phase chemicals. A curiosity is that a person can recognize about 10.000 different types of odors.

Memory and smell

Is there a smell that reminds you of someone or something? I don´t know about you, but I do. One example about myself is the scent of banana and vanilla and Johnson´s Baby. They remind me of my dog. Another example is of a restaurant owner that could smell the gas and save everyone before the restaurant caught fire.

My personal memory

I also have a great memory of the school, I remember the perfume of a teacher that I had in year 1 or 2. Although I don´t remember her very well, I remember her smell. She had a very sweet and good smell, and I liked her very much, she was very kind and always helped me. Furthermore, she was very percipient. At this point she has probably changed her perfume. Nowadays she stays at kinder 2, I see her sometimes around school.  We called her Patty.

 

The importance of smell

Wrapping up, after a lot of research it can be stated that smell is essential for the human being because it can help us survive. For example, in case of fire we would smell it and know about it before we get burned. Moreover, our sense of smell is connected to our memories and they can remind us of something or someone who is significant to you.

 

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfaction

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/O/Olfaction.html

 

Jun 16

Smell? What Is It? By João Pedro (7C)

 

 

Introducing smell

Smell is the mental capacity of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc. In this article, I will talk about how smell is connected to memory and if smell is a good or bad thing for us.

How do they work?

According to Gloria Rodrigez-Gil, M.Ed., a California Deaf-Blind Services Educational Specialist, “the sense of smell, just like the sense of taste, is a chemical sense. They are called chemical senses because they detect chemicals in the environment, with the difference being that smell works at dramatically larger distances than that of taste.”

We often take the sense of smell in our day-to-day lives for granted, and think we really rely on our eyes and ears. Smell has been an integral part of evolution and survival of the fittest for our species in the past. Although humans rely less now on smell for survival, a huge importance is still placed on smell today for taste enjoyment and to attract a partner through the use of perfumes.

Smell and memory

As reported by How Stuff Works online, “A smell can bring on a flood of memories, influence people’s moods and even affect their work performance. Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain’s limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling it’s sometimes called the ‘emotional brain’, smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously.”

 

The definition of smell

As most of you all know, the basic definition of smell, by Dictionary Reference online, is that it is the ability to perceive and distinguish odors. The definition of smelling, also by Dictionary Reference online, is “the act of perceiving and distinguishing odors, the act of smelling”.

Examples

Now, you will see three examples of how the sense of smell can help you (one of them is a personal example):

  • Your house is on fire and you don’t know about it, then you suddenly smell the fire and run out of your house. You survive because of the sense of smell.
  • You like someone’s fragrance scent, and you buy the same fragrance as the person. You’re walking at the street and smell the same fragrance that you have bought, and you remember that you forgot the fragrance at the store.

(Personal Example) I was in the middle of a class, I detected the smell of pastel, a traditional Brazilian food, and I remembered its taste, realizing that we were going to have pastel at lunch time.

Conclusion

Finally, after all of my research, I can conclude that the sense of smell is really important for our daily lives because it can save our lives and make us remember of happy and sad moments. The sense of smell can also transform our lives, sometimes in negative aspects and sometimes in positive aspects.

 

Source:

http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/smell3.htm

https://www.tsbvi.edu/seehear/summer05/smell.htm

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/smell

Jun 16

Memories and Smells by Paola G. (7C)

image 2

Introduction

What are memories?A memory is the capacity the human brain has to save, store and recall information and past experiences. Even if memory is very important, the sense of smell is also essential to capture scents that are related to memories.

Definition

The sense of smell is the sense which is more connected to memory. Our nose is able to detect some scents that remind you of special memories. The sense of smell is very hard to understand, so it became the topic of many studies during the years. Our capacity to smell can alert us to bad, dangerous or pleasuring scents.  According to Air Aroma online, our sense of smell can alert us to dangerous scents, like gas leak.

Sharing personal memories

I would like to share my personal memories. My real life example is the scent of sand. The scent of sand reminds me of my childhood, when I played with my friends at a square. I remember the scent of sand because always, while I was playing, I fell down. When my mom and I arrived at the square, every morning, the sand was always wet and we never discovered why.

Sharing more personal memories 

There are also other memories that I could share. In Stance Dual I remember the perfume of a friend. I always stayed with him and we always played together. He has already left the school and we lost personal contact. Nowadays we rarely talk, moreover the conversation is by Whatsapp. I have great memories with him, and although we had some fights, it wasn’t anything so serious and we liked each other very much. I hope we can see each other again! I miss him!

Conclusion

Concluding, I can say that our sense of smell is exceptional, because we can identify meaningful scents that can remind us of something or someone. These smells give us the chance to appreciate the great things of our lives.

Sources:

May 18

Hello world!

Welcome to Stance Dual School ICT Department. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

This web site is proudly powered by Stance Dual School ICT Department.