Science & Tech

How Our Senses Shape What We Remember

Photo by The New York Public Library / Unsplash

In Crossmodal Interactions in Human Learning and Memory, Murray and Shams (2023) discuss how our senses work together when we learn and remember something. Everyday experiences can involve sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. The reading focuses especially on sight and sound, and how experiencing them together can affect what we remember later.

Memories of events include sensory details and information about the situation in which they happened. The authors discuss studies where people remembered objects more successfully when they originally saw them alongside a matching sound, compared with seeing them alone or hearing an unrelated sound. This suggests that the relationship between sensory information can help with remembering, even when only one sense is involved in the later reminder (Murray & Shams, 2023, Section 3).

A point I find interesting is that the sound’s relationship to the object mattered. This makes me question the assumption that adding more sensory elements will automatically make an experience more memorable.

Remembering an experience can reactivate sensory brain regions involved when it first happened. The review describes how a visual reminder of something originally experienced through sight and sound can activate both visual and auditory regions during recall (Murray & Shams, 2023, Section 3).

I think this gives some explanation for how one detail can bring other parts of an experience back to mind. It makes me wonder how looking at a photograph from a gathering might bring back the conversations or music associated with that moment.

Reflection

I think this reading connects well with my interest in shared experiences because it makes me consider what people remember about their time together. I usually think about the activity itself, but the music, food, or feeling of the space could also become part of that memory. A point I want to think about further is how those details become meaningful through the people involved. For design, this makes me more interested in how the different parts of an experience relate to each other and what someone might remember about that experience when they come across a familiar detail later.

Reference

Murray, C. A., & Shams, L. (2023). Crossmodal interactions in human learning and memory. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 17, Article 1181760. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1181760

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