Music and Autobiographical Memories

Abstract

Multiple research studies have shown how music can act as a cue to evoke autobiographical memories, but little research has been done on the differences between the types of autobiographical memories evoked by songs from childhood and teenage years. The present study examined the contents of music-evoked personal memories and the ways in which the participants view memories from the two developmental periods. Twenty-three undergraduate students from Purchase College self-selected two songs from their childhood and another two from their teenage years and answered a series of questions about these songs in terms of content of the memories involved as well as emotional appraisals of the memories. As hypothesized, the findings of this study revealed that memories evoked by songs from childhood revolved around family members, family events, and home life. Memories evoked by songs from teenage years included peers and romantic interests and were less focused on family members than the memories associated with the childhood songs. Surprisingly, it was found that the primary location associated with teenage memories was the home of the participant instead of other hypothesized locations (e.g., school and settings of extracurricular activities). The findings of this study also supported the hypothesis that teenage memories would be associated with higher levels of negative emotions than the memories from childhood.