A Question About Memory

[Jenny A]

I just had a realization during dinner.  When I remember sounds, I hear them in my head.  When I remember seeing, I see in my head.  I can also relive touch to a more limited degree. But with the exception of salt, chili peppers, and garlic, I can't pull up and relive tastes.  Nor can I relive smells.  I have a descriptive memory of smell and taste, but not a you are there sort of memory.  It's more like a memory captioned with and this stank in a brown organic way or that tasted extraordinary in a citrus and nut sort of way.

But smell and taste are great triggers for memory.  If I smell chlorine I'm at the pool.  Taste cardamom bread and I'm a child on Christmas morning.

Everyone else at the table admitted to not being able to play back tastes and smells. 

Can anyone remember tastes the way they remember sound and sight?  Why should there be any difference?

[The Grand Nudger]

Can you remember the taste of watermelon, celery, or vinegar?
(since you mentioned salt, peppers, garlic)

I bet there's a great question about memory here, but I'm also willing to bet that it isn't about remembering tastes - but how often you -remember-....remembering tastes. 

[Jenny A]

Can you remember the taste of watermelon, celery, or vinegar?
(since you mentioned salt, peppers, garlic)

Vinegar yes.  Celery and watermelon no.  Though I can remember the sensation of eating both.  And I could identify any of them blindfolded.  Actually, I'm very good at tasting a dish and telling you what is was spiced with and reproducing it in my own kitchen later.  But I can't relive the taste.

Can you relive tastes?

I'm thinking taste and smell might be stored differently than sight and hearing. Like the ability to do certain physical tasks like riding a bike or typing without being about to mentally run through all the steps.

[Edwardo Piet]

I can see words in my head and hear sounds.... I can't intentionally visualize any pictures in my head at all.

I get flashback memories that are visual that flash for a second but I can never conjure them up, they are never intentional. And any creativity in visual memory is very rare for me and usually only in dreams - and once again it is never intended and purely accidental.

Normally I am even more limited with scents and tastes in memory. Like extremely limited.

Sound wise I can remember like whole songs note for note sometimes. Large songs. And when I try to visualize I just see text in my head along with the sound of my voice. I have inner subtitles. That is the extent of my visual memory 99.9999% of my time and I have no way of vetoing it

A neuropsychologist said I had symptoms of a head injury in visual and spacial areas of my brain... but a brain scan confirmed no damage whatsoever. She suggested I may have Asperger Syndrome or something similar. It was never tested and it is really awkward and difficult and requires travel and money and persistence for me to get it tested.

[ignoramus]

I can confidently say I know the taste of my strawberry milkshake as if I'm drinking it now. Ahhhh! Yum!

[The Grand Nudger]

I wouldn't know, at least not the way you're asking.   I can remember, and long for, and pine for a cheap greek wine I had in Germany /w my ex wife.  That was more than a decade ago now.  What I couldn't tell you was whether or not the wine tastes as I remember it...that might just be the dry, cheeck-puckering taste of misery.

[Jenny A]

A neuropsychologist said I had symptoms of a head injury in visual and spacial areas of my brain... but a brain scan confirmed no damage whatsoever. She suggested I may have Asperger Syndrome or something similar. It was never tested and it is really awkward and difficult and requires travel and money and persistence for me to get it tested.

Interesting.  Auditory you can replay.  What about touch, taste, and smell?

[Edwardo Piet]

They are my absolute weakest... especially touch.

And spacial is probably weaker than visual.

But visual is still basically dead it's all just subtitles.

My entire inner life is auditory. I'm basically a bat.

"I'm Batman".

[Jenny A]

I wouldn't know, at least not the way you're asking.   I can remember, and long for, and pine for a cheap greek wine I had in Germany /w my ex wife.  That was more than a decade ago now.  What I couldn't tell you was whether or not the wine tastes as I remember it...that might just be the dry, cheeck-puckering taste of misery.

I don't know how to put it plainer.  It's not a question of memory accuracy but how you remember.  Are you remembering words describing a taste or an actual taste sensation?  For me with taste and smell it's usually just a description I remember, like Evie describes remembering sights.

But I bet that just like I recognize tastes I've had before, Evie recognizing faces and places seen before.

[Edwardo Piet]

Yeah to be honest I would find life a lot less frustrating if I could think in pictures........... for Area 69 reasons.

I just have to escape into music.