Does variation of modality of the interpolated task affect olfactory memory? An exploratory study

Pages: 439-442
Vineeta Srivastava (Department of Psychology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata)
Bidisha Bhattacharyya (Clinical Psychology (M.Phil Trainee) University of Calcutta, Kolkata)
Deepshikha Ray (Department of Psychology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata)

This work aims to study the effect of variation of modality of the interpolated task on the retrieval of previously learned task among the subjects. In the initial phase (pilot study) a between group design was used where two groups of 10 female participants were matched on the basis of their olfactory memory span (5 in each group) for the present work. The sample selected for the experiment aged between 20-23 years without any physical or mental illness. For the experiment to be conducted for measuring the variation of modality, the interpolated task for the first group was of olfactory stimuli (same as that of main task) while the interpolated task for the second group was that of gustatory stimuli (different from that of the main task). The smell or odors chosen for this experiment were different and belonged to different category of the smell prism (Henning’s smell prism). It has been found that there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups for the two different conditions (Wilcox on signed rank test was done). This might be for two major reasons firstly, the food used for the experiment has a subjective smell of its own; though the food items used were as odorless as possible but the subjective factor could not be ruled out completely. Secondly, the sample size of the experiment could not be extended since the experiment demands a whole lot of time and resource. The first factor cannot be ruled out completely, but the sample size can be increased. So, in the second phase, the sample size will be increased to 20 (10 in each group) and the same procedure will be followed. However, the empirical data on long-term odor memory suggest that long-term odor memory may be distinguished from memory for other stimuli being usually resistant to decay.