Introduction

The neuropsychology of olfactory cognition is a relatively young scientific domain that in recent years has in many respects advanced from explorative research to more focused and hypothesis-driven investigations. That advancement can be attributed in part to important studies of certain neurological and geriatric disorders. A question of interest here is whether or not research in odor memory in populations with those disorders can provide a better understanding of the neural processes underlying odor memory. For example, there is evidence that Korsakoff patients experience rapid forgetting in the visual, auditory, and tactile modes, but not in the olfactory realm (Jones, Moscowitz, and Butters, 1975; Mair, Harrison, and Flint, 1995). That has been used as part of the evidence that odor memory may be a specialized subsystem of memory (Herz and Eich, 1995). If so, it might be expected that a pattern quite opposite to that of Korsakoff patients would be possible. Thus, memory impairment for olfaction may, under certain neuropathologic conditions, be more severe than memory deficits in other sensory modalities.

The notion of olfactory-specific memory impairment can be linked to the possibility of odor memory being particularly vulnerable to certain cortical neuropathologic conditions. In a rather extensive review of the neuropsychological literature involving human olfaction, Mair et al. (1995) concluded that, in contrast to the situation for other sensory modalities, there is no evidence for morphologically distinct centers mediating memory for and perception of odors.