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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Olfactory Context Dependent Memory: Direct Presentation of Odorants
Published on: September 18, 2018
Familiarity, cued and free odor identification and their association with cognitive functioning in middle aged and
Eike Ines Wehling1, Steven Nordin, Thomas Espeseth
1Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. Eike.Wehling@psybp.uib.no
Abstract:
The aim of the present study was to examine the association between familiarity of odors, cued and free odor identification performance and cognitive function in elderly adults. It was further investigated how age affects performance on the various odor tasks. A third aim was to investigate the role of familiarity in explaining performance on the free identification task. One hundred and thirty-six participants (aged 45-79 years) with normal olfactory sensitivity were assessed with the Scandinavian Odor Identification Test (SOIT) and standardized tests of cognitive function. Familiarity did not correlate with any measure of cognitive function, while verbal identification performance was associated with several cognitive measures, although correlations were modest. In this sample, free odor identification was affected by increasing age to a marginally larger extent than cued identification performance and familiarity ratings. The results suggest that the different olfactory tasks involve different levels of cognitive processing.
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