Unlike sight or sound, smell has a direct pathway to the amygdala and hippocampus-the regions involved in emotion and autobiographical memory. Because of this connection, memories triggered by scent are often more vivid and emotionally intense than those triggered by sight.
On average, single adults in the U.S. report they have fallen in passionate love twice in their life so far, according to a new survey. And 14 percent of the 10,036 respondents said they had never fallen in passionate love at all. The results highlight the diversity of people's experiences with love, says the study's lead author Amanda Gesselman, a psychologist at Indiana University's Kinsey Institute. There's a lot more variation than we really know about, she says.
Bring two or more people together and they will immediately begin to synchronize or fall into rhythm with one another. Not only do we tend to subconsciously mimic one another's movements, postures, facial expressions, and gestures, but recent breakthroughs in technology have revealed we also sync up our heart rates, blood pressure, brain waves, pupil dilation, and hormonal activity. This phenomenon is known as interpersonal synchrony, and it is possibly the most consequential social dynamic most people have never heard of.
