11/04/2008

i swear to god

i bought a juice yesterday which was pressed apples, strawberries and lychee.

lychee. imagine that. when i tasted it it took me away to another place. so that's how memories work. i mean why... why do we remember taste?

2 comments:

mich said...

It's not taste, as in the sensations that come from your tastebuds, that's doing the timewarp stuff in your head. Smell is the sense which is most intimately linked to memory. It's just that most of what we think of as taste actually comes from smell.

mich said...

Okay, I just realised you asked 'why'. Why does it happen? Because our olfactory sensory nerves transmit signals to both the limbic system and the cortex. Limbic system controls emotions and memory.

Why has our brain developed this way? Controversial area. It's been noted that babies can't differentiate btw unpleasant and pleasant smells, so it seems that we have to learn what smells good or bad. Remembering that the first rotten-smelling fruit we ate made us sick is crucial to our survival. Just a theory, not everyone agrees.