Student Name: Yuri Hong
Project Title: Nostalgia through the Lens of Scents
Project Title: Nostalgia through the Lens of Scents
Project Description:
They say that the sense of smell is closely linked with memory, probably more so than any of our other senses. The smell of cigarettes on a jacket or the smell of your mother’s Chanel perfume could bring strong emotions as a response to those memories or anything we associate with those scents. Because scent perception is a learned association, responses to odors are learned by the emotional context in which they are perceived directly. This also means that sometimes when we smell a familiar scent, we become reconnected to memories from our past, creating an experience known as nostalgia. Nostalgia is described as being ‘a sentimentality for the past’ consisting of the greek words ‘nóstos’, meaning “homecoming” and álgos, meaning “pain” or “ache”. True to its root words, nostalgia often brings upon the bittersweet feelings of being close to a memory but very far from its origination. However, research has shown that practicing nostalgia is a great way to connect our past to our present and feel optimistic about the future. Nostalgia can also encourage empathy, social connectedness, and is an integral part of how we form the human narrative. READ FULL BLOG POST
They say that the sense of smell is closely linked with memory, probably more so than any of our other senses. The smell of cigarettes on a jacket or the smell of your mother’s Chanel perfume could bring strong emotions as a response to those memories or anything we associate with those scents. Because scent perception is a learned association, responses to odors are learned by the emotional context in which they are perceived directly. This also means that sometimes when we smell a familiar scent, we become reconnected to memories from our past, creating an experience known as nostalgia. Nostalgia is described as being ‘a sentimentality for the past’ consisting of the greek words ‘nóstos’, meaning “homecoming” and álgos, meaning “pain” or “ache”. True to its root words, nostalgia often brings upon the bittersweet feelings of being close to a memory but very far from its origination. However, research has shown that practicing nostalgia is a great way to connect our past to our present and feel optimistic about the future. Nostalgia can also encourage empathy, social connectedness, and is an integral part of how we form the human narrative. READ FULL BLOG POST
