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A metamemory perspective on odor naming and identification
Fredrik U Jönsson1, Antoinette Tchekhova, Pär Lönner
1Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Box 1225, S-75142 Uppsala, Sweden. fredrik.jonsson@psyk.uu.se
Chemical Senses
|April 12, 2005
Summary
People struggle to name odors not because of weak word associations, but due to difficulty identifying the scent itself. Feelings of knowing (FOK) are unreliable for odor recall, unlike for person names.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Sensory Science
Background:
- The inability to name common odors is a frequent experience, often accompanied by a strong feeling of knowing (FOK).
- Existing theories suggest poor odor-name associations contribute to this difficulty.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the metacognitive reasons behind odor-naming failures.
- To compare feelings of knowing (FOK) and tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experiences for odors versus person names.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments were conducted comparing metacognitive judgments (FOK, TOT) for odor names and person names.
- Participants' ability to identify odors and their subjective confidence in naming were assessed.
Main Results:
- Odor-naming failures stem primarily from identification difficulties ('knowing what it is'), not poor odor-name associations.
- Tip-of-the-tongue experiences are rare for odors compared to person names.
- Feelings of knowing (FOK) for odors are less predictive of successful recall than for person names.
- FOK judgments correlate with cue familiarity and memory accessibility, supporting dual theories of metacognition.
Conclusions:
- The difficulty in naming odors is a failure of odor identification, not lexical retrieval.
- Metacognitive judgments, particularly FOK, function differently for olfactory stimuli compared to verbal stimuli like names.