In this series we publish blog posts written by our undergraduate students for the PB101 Foundations of Psychological Science course. In this post, Su Yesildere explores how music can evoke autobiographical memories.
Imagine walking down the street when suddenly you hear a dance class practising their new choreography. The song that is playing seems familiar, but you cannot figure out where from. Then it hits you; this was the last song that played at the graduation party. It takes you right back to the moment you were dancing with your friends. You relive the memories. It catches you off-guard, making it seem as if you are still at that place, feeling the same butterflies in your stomach.
For Marta C. Gonzalez, this was extreme. She was a former ballerina who got Alzheimer’s disease, but when she listened to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, she could easily remember all her moves and poses. She flutters her arms as the melody begins to play, even remembering the parts where the piece intensifies, and the arm movements change accordingly (Winship, 2020). Her video can be found here.
The relationship between music and memory is not limited to Gonzalez’s case; over the years, psychologists have worked to understand a variety of connections between these two concepts. Whether it is examining the difference in verbal memory in musicians and non-musicians (Chan et al., 1998), understanding how one feels like they know a certain melody (Peynircioglu et al., 1998), or film soundtracks causing strong emotional arousal during memory retrieval (Eschrich et al., 2008), music affects memory.
Autobiographical memories and music
Autobiographical memory is the “discrete experiences of a person in acts or situations” (Robinson, 1976). Over the years, psychologists have researched how music can work as a cue to evoke autobiographical memories. The exact theoretical background is still unknown. However, there seems to be a relation to emotion; music can aid in the retrieval of automatic memory through emotion-related mechanisms (Jäncke, 2008). Further research needs to be done to fully understand the mechanism behind this phenomenon.
One of the earlier studies on music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) (Janata et al., 2007) investigated how music works as a stimulus to elicit the memories of personal experiences. The research relied on self-report data under the question of how “hearing a piece can evoke memories of the original experience” (Baumgartner, 1992). The study suggested that individuals could easily recall a song of personal significance relating to an autobiographical memory. Individuals categorised their memory into one of the given options (“Event, Period, Person/People, Place, none of the above”); if the memory was within one of the four categories, they were asked to give further details. Most of the remembered memories involved either past or present romantic relationships, or friends and family. Some of the most used words in the descriptions were school (524), friend (393), and dancing (210). There was a bias towards the more positive experiences rather than the “unpleasant” ones (Baumgartner et al., 1992).
Research on recalling autobiographical memory is tricky; it is subjective and often conducted using self-reported data, causing low validity. While the participants could state they recall a song of personal significance, cross-checking cannot take place since it is unique to their own experience. The studies are correlational.
In another study, Janata et al., (2007), examined how direct musical stimuli can work as a cue to retrieve autobiographical memories depending on their familiarity. The researchers used the Billboard Top 100 and R&B lists as the stimuli songs; each participant listened to 30 of these songs, like Rihanna’s 2007 hit Umbrella, presented at random. Some of the songs that were either “somewhat” or “strongly” familiar were associated with a memory because these songs evoked an intense emotional reaction (Janata et al., 2007), helping form memories (Eschrich et al., 2008).
The major limitation of studies that use predetermined songs as auditory cues is that they do not capture all the songs that could be personally significant. Participants could have separate songs eliciting a memory that are not on the list the researchers have chosen. The effect could be stronger than the studies suggest.
At this point, you are probably considering which songs stand out for you and which periods they are related to. Often, MEAMs are from one’s adolescence, specifically from the ages of 10 to 19 (Lamont & Loveday, 2018). These memories are majorly related to three themes: identity, love, and support. Identity refers to an individual’s references to their nationality, gender, and “more hidden psychological states” (Lamont & Loveday, 2018). For love, mostly family connections, with a focus on children, and partners, are seen. Support is about the unity of people, including both positive (weddings, birthdays, etc.) and negative (funerals, etc. ) occasions.
But are autobiographical memories only limited to musical cues? Could other stimuli work as cues to evoke certain memories?
Research shows that other sensory cues, such as images (Belfi, 2015), words (Zator & Katz, 2016), and even television shows (Jakubowski et al., 2021) can evoke autobiographical memories. However, these memories are not found to be as vivid as MEAMs. Words that explicitly remind of a certain period like “10 years old” (Zator & Katz, 2016) or the images of the artist of a song cannot evoke clear memories; yet, the musical piece, with its melody and lyrics can bring you back to the earlier years in your life.
A similar phenomenon is the Proust Effect, inspired by the French novelist Marcel Proust. In his novel À la recherche du temps perdu, the main character eats madeleines, which remind him of his childhood. The Proust effect represents “the memory of senses” (Campen, 2013, Chapter 1), described as “doorways to lost memories” (Campen, 2013).
Where do MEAMs fit in our daily lives?
Research on MEAMs can help the treatment of Alzheimer’s. As was seen in the case of Gonzalez, individuals could remember certain parts of their lives using musical cues. Yet, the applicability of this approach depends on the severity of Alzheimer’s and when it has progressed. Another application is consumer behaviour; brands using jingles can influence shopping behaviour. Musical stimuli evoking the feeling of nostalgia can be used in marketing products, as previous research suggests (Havlena & Holak, 1991).
So, the next time you hear a song that reminds you of a person, event, period, or even a place, capture that feeling. Is it related to a happy memory with your family? Or the bittersweet feeling after a farewell? Or maybe it just brings out that nostalgic feeling of the summer holidays. Whichever it is, try to seize that feeling because, most likely, you will not be reminded of it until the next time that song plays. It seems that if you note down these songs, you could create the soundtrack of your life!
- This post was originally written as part of PB101: Foundations of Psychological Science, which is a core course on the BSc Psychological and Behavioural Science. It has been published with the permission of the author.
- The opinions in this post are of the author, not of the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science or LSE.
- Cover image by cottonbro studio from Pexels.
References
- Baumgartner, H. (1992). Remembrance of Things Past: Music, Autobiographical Memory, and Emotion. Advances in Consumer Research, 19(1), pp. 613-620. Link.
- Belfi, A. M., & Jakubowski, K. (2021). Music and Autobiographical Memory. SAGE journals. Link.
- Campen, C. van. (2014). Chapter 1: A memory of the senses: Introduction: Musical memories by pop songs . In The Proust effect: The senses as doorways to lost memories. Essay, Oxford University Press.
- Campen, C. van. (2014). Chapter 4: Listening to ‘my generation’: Musical memories by pop songs . In The Proust effect: The senses as doorways to lost memories. Essay, Oxford University Press.
- Chan, A., Ho, YC. & Cheung, MC. Music training improves verbal memory. Nature 396, 128. Link.
- Eschrich, S., Münte, T. F., & Altenmüller, E. O. (2008). Unforgettable film music: the role of emotion in episodic long-term memory for music. BMC neuroscience, 9, 48. Link.
- Havlena, W. J., & Holak, S. L. (1991). The Good Old Days: Observations on nostalgia and its role in consumer behavior: ACR. ACR North American Advances. Link.
- Jakubowski, K., Belfi, A. M., & Eerola, T. (2021). Phenomenological differences in music- and television-evoked autobiographical memories. Music Perception, 38(5), pp 435–455. Link.
- Jäncke, L. (2008). Music, memory and Emotion. Journal of Biology, 7(21). Link.
- Janata, P., Tomic, S. T., & Rakowski, S. K. (2007). Characterisation of music-evoked autobiographical memories. Memory, 15(8), 845–860. Link.
- Lamont, & Loveday, C. (2020). A New Framework for Understanding Memories and Preference for Music. Music & Science, 3. Link.
- Peynircioglu, Tekcan, A. I., Wagner, J. L., Baxter, T. L., & Shaffer, S. D. (1998). Name or Hum That Tune: Feeling of Knowing for Music. Memory & Cognition, 26(6), 1131–1137. Link.
- Robinson, J.A. (1976). Sampling autobiographical memory. Cognitive Psychology, 8(4), 578–595. Link.
- Winship, L. (2020). Viral video of ballerina with Alzheimer’s shows vital role of music in memory. The Guardian. Link.
- Zator, K., & Katz, A. N. (2016). The language used in describing autobiographical memories prompted by life period visually presented verbal cues, event-specific visually presented verbal cues and short musical clips of popular music. Memory, 25(6), 831–844. Link.