Jeannette Lowen on the Madeleine experience

Proust's artistic engagement with memory intersects in many ways with what science has learned about the mechanics of memory. The physiology of Proust's petit madeleine experience is well understood. The olfactory system, for instance, has a direct, evolutionarily primitive connection to the hypothalamus not shared by other sensory systems, which gives odors a special power to trigger memories in some detail. His work also anticipates modern psychological findings on the degree to which memory is reconstructive, "fleshing out" the details of a remembered scene anew each time it is recalled, the memory itself being merely an "outline."