This was especially the case for negative emotional stimuli. But what we did find was that music evoked more consistently positive memories than other emotional sounds and words. When compared with these emotionally matched cues, the music didn’t elicit any more memories than the words. This included comparing music with “emotional sounds”, such as nature and factory noises and “emotional words”, such as “money” and “tornado”. We compared music with other emotional memory cues that had been rated by a large group of participants as conveying the same emotional expression as the music excerpts we used. Positive memories In recent research my colleague and I found that the emotional nature of a piece of music is an important factor in how it serves as a memory cue. And this then means it is able to serve as an effective cue for remembering this event years later. When music draws our attention, this increases the likelihood that it will be encoded in memory together with details of a life event. Music also often captures our attention, due to the way it affects our minds, bodies and emotions. First, music tends to accompany many distinctive life events, such as proms, graduations, weddings and funerals, so it can play an important role in reconnecting us with these self-defining moments. Research has recently begun to uncover why music appears to be such a good cue for invoking memories. That is, we make no effort to try to recall such memories, they just come to mind spontaneously. It often occurs as an involuntary memory. This experience – when music brings back memories of events, people and places from our past – is known as a music-evoked autobiographical memory. Hearing that piece of music takes you right back to where you were, who you were with and the feelings associated with that memory. ![]() ![]() Now suddenly, instead of noticing all the goings on in the city around you, you’re mentally reliving the first time you heard the song. You pass a busker playing a song you haven’t heard in years. You’re walking down a busy street on your way to work.
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