In the interview, Professor Goodman and Firestein discussed the memories of several senses, including olfactory memory and acoustic memory. I was wondering if there were any studies that actually compared the memory of all five senses – smell, touch, taste, vision, and hearing – in order to determine which one was best at retaining and recognizing its respective sensory information. Such information could shed a lot of insight into different types of learners and the relative roles that each sense has in detecting our environment.
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I think this is a fascinating point, Jaron. From my personal experience, acoustic memory seems to have interesting connections to general memory. For example, I can associate certain songs with distinct periods in my life during which I listened to those certain songs. Drawing from that, I would add to your question a query about whether there are interesting crossover dynamics between the memories of the different senses. As a medical condition, this is often called synesthesia—a synesthete might remember a certain color when they hear a certain sound, for example. I would be fascinated to learn more about these dynamics.