“Music evokes emotion, and emotion can bring its memory” – Oliver Sacks (British neurologist)
It is apparent throughout society that music is used as a medium for almost anything. Whether it is for relatability, informative purposes, or persuasive, music is one concept of the world that is truly unique and is irreplaceable. In fact, it is so powerful that it has the ability to trigger certain emotions and memories.
Music’s neurological abilities have been studied by psychologists and this concept of music that invokes memories and feelings has been named “music evoked autobiographical memory” or MEAMs (Kaiser 1). It has been concluded that music activates a “broad spectrum of brain areas and associated cognitive functions (Kaiser 1). These include activating the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. This allows music to make our memories more accessible and strengthens our brain’s ability to encode and store these memories as more emotional memories are easily remembered.
Author Juslin and his colleagues also suggest that we learn music through its rhythm and cadence in proportion to how we learn our memories in the moment. So as we are listening to a song, it may have a sudden twist, as a memory you had in the past had a sudden twist, creating a correlation between that moment in the song and that moment in your past.Therefore there is now a visual with the specific piece of music, which makes it more significant and an indicator of that memory (Kaiser 3). These memories can be both positive and negative, creating feelings of nostalgia and joy as well and evoking feelings sadness or loss from the past, which can be an indicator as to why we tend to be drawn to certain songs and avoid others, depending on if we are able to face the emotion or memory that we know will be triggered by them.
The circumstances of the piece of music are also important to releasing MEAMs as well as its structure. It is often that we remember a song based on a certain time period of our life. For example, current highschool students have often grown up with music from the early 2000s, and school dances almost always play songs from that time period to unlock a feeling of nostalgia and excitedness stemming from our childhood. Music is also almost always associated with significant periods in our lives like relationships or a memorable event or trip (Kaiser 4). It could even be a time period that isn’t relatively significant in retrospect, but if a certain song or genre plays repeatedly during that time, it is likely that your brain will unlock feelings or memories from that time if it is played again after not hearing it for a good while. The more we listen to the song in context to that memory or feeling, the stronger its association becomes. It’s much like the theory that chewing the same flavor of gum from when you were studying when you are taking a test improves information retention, repetition will always lead to retention.
This is why music is used as treatment for Alzheimer’s patients as well. AD (Alzheimer’s Disease) is a neurodegenerative disorder shown through progressive cognitive and behavioral impairments. But studies have shown that “people with AD are able to recognize familiar songs, perceive melody, harmony, and rhythm, as well as enjoy the listening experience,” meaning that music that resonates with the patients can be very beneficial for them to be able to release autobiographical memories and improve their cognitive abilities. It is said that music cues have allowed these people to regain a somewhat better sense of identity (Kaiser 5). This indicates that one’s music or music taste is so much more significant than what it seems. It helps us as people build a sense of identity. So next time you see someone’s playlist, you can view it as a portfolio of memories rather than a compilation of songs!
To help bring music to patients in need visit https://musicandmemory.org
Sources:
The Cognitive Characteristics of Music‐evoked …, wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcs.1627. Accessed 12 Mar. 2024.
