AGE AND GENDER'S EFFECTS ON "OLFACTORY IDENTIFICATION AND MEMORY" & "VISUAL IDENTIFICATION AND MEMORY"

Özdağ, Yağız (2013) AGE AND GENDER'S EFFECTS ON "OLFACTORY IDENTIFICATION AND MEMORY" & "VISUAL IDENTIFICATION AND MEMORY". Other thesis, TED ANKARA COLLEGE FOUNDATION PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOL.

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Abstract

"Olfaction" (adverbial form: "olfactory") is described as the sense of smell.1 Among all of our senses; touch, sight, hearing, taste and smell, our sense of smell is probably the most epicurean and rudimentary. Due to the hedonistic psychological nature of the human being, we tend to avoid unfavorable smells such as rancid food or strong chemical odorants and tend to approach more favorable smells such as a fragrant perfume or a fresh baked chocolate cake. The olfactory system itself is very interesting and different from the other sensory systems because it does not follow the "regular neurological path" when conveying a signal. Any sensory system but the olfactory system goes through the thalamus, whereas the olfactory system uses the olfactory bulb, a structure which transmits the "smell information" from the nose to the brain. Located in the inferior (bottom) brain the olfactory bulb is integral to the olfactory system. The development of the olfactory system is also, indeed, very intriguing. Granule cells, which are the most common type of interneurons in the olfactory bulb2 ,are mainly generated after birth and continue forming during the adult period3. It also differs from other sensory systems because some parts of the olfactory system, such as the vomeronasal organ, does not grow4. The activity of "smelling" takes place in the nasal cavity, but what we perceive as an odor is the "interpretation" of the brain. Specialized receptor cells of the olfactory epithelium detect and recognize smells.5 The olfactory receptor neurons are a broadly tuned small group of neurons, meaning that we do not have a huge number of specialized olfactory nerves for different odors, but rather a relatively smaller number of broadly tuned neurons. The stimuli, or the odorant molecule, binds to a specific set of neurons which then translate this to nerve signals in various frequencies for various odors. The nerve impulse then travels through the axon, reaching the olfactory bulb which send the impulse to the brain where it is interpreted as a smell. Odor identification occurs because different odorants (substances that stimulate the nerves in the nasal cavity) bind to different receptors and stimulate them differently. Every different odor is encoded with a different frequency, and that, is how we categorize different odors. However, the research is not only concerned with odor identification, another aspect of the research is olfactory memory (short-term). In Dr. Nicole Klutky's research on "Sex differences in memory performance for odors, tone sequences and colors", a significant advantage in female olfactory memory was observed while optical memory scores showed no such differences6. The research was done on 60 women and 40 men.

Item Type: Thesis (Other)
Additional Information: SUPERVISOR: SEVIM SARAL, IB Botu: C
Uncontrolled Keywords: Olfaction, olfactory, olfactory memory, visual memory
Subjects: Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
Depositing User: Users 114 not found.
Date Deposited: 18 Sep 2013 08:14
Last Modified: 18 Sep 2013 08:14
URI: http://tedprints.tedankara.k12.tr/id/eprint/406

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