Sensory Education: Learning through the Sense of Smell

The sense of smell, often underestimated, is a powerful tool in education and instruction thanks to its direct connection with perceptual systems, sensory memory and emotions through the limbic system. The integration of olfactory stimuli in learning environments sometimes precedes and sometimes supports and enhances linguistic and cognitive functions, as well as the understanding of experiential processes, ideas that find broad scientific consensus around the framework of neurovariability. Recent research indi- cates that sensory functions are closely related to developmental processes. Sensory processes support perceptual experiences, memory and, consequently, complex cognitive and learning processes throughout all stages of life, however, the degree of neural plasticity appears to be higher in the early stages of development than in adulthood. Through the paradigms of neu- roeducation and multi-sensory learning theory, some possible avenues for study and research are highlighted on the relationship between teaching-learning and olfactory perception and on the applications of sensory teaching in educational and school contexts.