Semantic congruency facilitates the retrieval of visual associations to odors and decreases retroactive memory interference.

This article investigates the effectiveness of odors as cues in paired-associate (PA) memory compared to verbal and auditory stimuli, with a focus on the role of semantic congruency and memory interference. Two experiments demonstrated that odors are generally less effective PA cues than verbal or auditory stimuli, but semantic congruency between cues and targets significantly enhances memory performance across all modalities, with a stronger effect observed for olfactory cues. Additionally, olfactory PA memory is susceptible to both proactive interference (PI) and retroactive interference (RI), with RI being more pronounced, and semantic congruency modulates RI by strengthening associations and influencing interference patterns. These findings clarify that while odors are weaker associative cues in PA paradigms, semantic congruency plays a crucial role in improving olfactory memory retrieval and mitigating interference effects, contributing to a nuanced understanding of olfactory memory relative to other sensory modalities.