Why can a familiar smell or sound bring an old memory to mind?
Sometimes a smell or song brings back a person, place or moment you had not thought about in years.
Published 24 October 2026 · Last evidence review 24 October 2026 · OASYS Editorial
You're walking past a kitchen when someone opens a pot.
For a second the smell belongs to another house, another street, perhaps a family gathering so ordinary that nobody thought to photograph it.
Nothing around you has changed. Yet your mind has gone travelling.
Or perhaps it is a song in a shop. You recognise two notes before you can say why they matter.
How can something so ordinary open a door to a memory?
Memory and its cues
Psychologists call memories of events from our lives autobiographical memories. Experiences involve people, places, thoughts, sights, sounds and scents that can later act as retrieval cues.
Rachel Herz (2004) compared memories prompted by olfactory, visual and auditory cues. Memories elicited by odours showed distinctive experiential qualities compared with other cues under the study conditions.
Hackländer and colleagues (2019) reviewed the wider literature on odour-evoked autobiographical memories. They found evidence of a distinctive relationship, while emphasising limitations in study methods and unanswered questions.
A smell is not a reliable key to every forgotten event.
The song from years ago
For one person, a song is just a catchy tune. For another, it's a bus journey, an old friendship or a childhood room.
In research by Janata, Tomic and Rakowski (2007), about 30% of song presentations evoked an autobiographical memory. That describes their research sample and procedures, not an exact probability for everyone who hears a familiar tune.
The same song can feel joyful to one listener and unpleasant to another.
Remembering is not replaying
A memory may seem vivid without being an exact recording. Recollection draws on stored information, present context and later learning.
A sensory cue can prompt a recollection; it does not establish that every detail is accurate or that an unremembered event has been recovered.
And not every recollection is welcome. You needn't chase a memory or explain it. If a tune or smell is unpleasant, you can choose something else.
The ordinary wonder of it
Perhaps the song ends and you carry on shopping. Perhaps you message somebody it reminded you of. Perhaps you simply smile.
The kitchen still smells like dinner.
For a moment, it also smells like somewhere you once belonged.
References
- Herz, R. S. (2004). A naturalistic analysis of autobiographical memories triggered by olfactory visual and auditory stimuli. Chemical Senses, 29(3), 217–224. https://doi.org/10.1093/chemse/bjh025
- Hackländer, R. P. M., Janssen, S. M. J., & Bermeitinger, C. (2019). An in-depth review of the methods, findings, and theories associated with odor-evoked autobiographical memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 26, 401–429. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-018-1545-3
- Janata, P., Tomic, S. T., & Rakowski, S. K. (2007). Characterization of music-evoked autobiographical memories. Memory, 15(8), 845–860. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210701734593