(one of the senses and memory) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

(one of the senses and memory) - Essay Example They are all equally necessary and without one, the others would have a difficult time functioning. Together with providing inputs for perception, senses also help in bringing back memories that we often have difficulty remembering. Certain senses are more dominant than others in this aspect for some people, but the general population has reported that it was the smell of a certain object that brought back the memories in a more vivid way. I have discovered that whenever I catch a certain smell, it brings back memories associated with it. Hearing and tasting also help, but none of them come close to smell. Sometimes I even find myself tracking a scent I may have caught. Once I catch it, I just feel like staying there all day. These smells remind me of my childhood mostly, and places that I went with my parents while a kid, memories I deeply treasure. When I was a preschooler, my family was fond of visiting our grandmother’s home in the country. This was far from the city. We w ould find life there completely different. In contrast to the fast, noisy city life, the country was quiet, relaxed, and peaceful. I enjoyed it there. My brother and I would run around in the big plantations together with our cousin and play near the river. The scents of nature all around together with the sound of birds singing was so soothing. We would then walk through the forest of tall trees in the late afternoon before going home. The smell of these trees is strong at this particular time. And I have never seen or smelled these trees in any other place I’ve been to except my grandmothers compound. Now that I’ve been away from my country for over a decade, I had completely forgotten about it, until recently when I was able to go back and visit again. After eleven years of absence the sight of those trees surprised me and brought back old memories of my innocent childhood, but that was nothing compared to the smell they produced. The moment I caught it, a flood of memories just swept me back which left me in tears. Since then, I terribly miss my grandmother’s house because I have linked that smell with it. You may ask why smell is considered the most dominant in bringing back memories. The answer is not so simple. Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain’s limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling, smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously. That’s why it is sometimes called the â€Å"emotional brain†. Inside your nose, about the level of your eyes, is a small patch of tissue containing millions of nerve cells. The odor receptors, or senses, lie on these nerves. Each receptor recognizes several odors, and likewise, a single odor can be recognized by several receptors. The process that takes place is quite complex. After an odor molecule enters the nose and is recognized by the olfactory sensors, the signal is eventually sent to the olfactory bulb that is located right above the eyes. The signals only go to two areas in the olfactory bulb, and signals from different areas are targeted to different spots that then form a sensory map. From there, the signals reach the olfactory area of the cortex, which is also responsible for sensing smell. The limbic system, considered the primitive part of the brain, includes areas that control emotions, memory, and behavior. So it is no surprise why this particular sense defeats the others in this