The effects of song familiarity and age on phenomenological characteristics and neural recruitment during autobiographical memory retrieval.

Abstract

Recent research suggests that emotional music clips can serve as a highly successful tool for eliciting rich autobiographical memories, and that the utility of these cues may be related to their subjective familiarity. The current study was designed to examine the effects of familiarity on phenomenological characteristics and neural recruitment during retrieval of autobiographical memories elicited by musical cues. Further, we were interested in understanding how these effects differ as a function of age. In an event-related functional neuroimaging study, participants retrieved autobiographical memories associated with age-specific popular musical clips. Participants rated song familiarity, as well as the temporal specificity and emotional valence of each memory. Song familiarity was associated with increased dmPFC activity and ratings of temporal specificity and positivity across participants. In addition, behavioral and neuroimaging findings suggest age differences in familiarity-related effects in which familiarity was more associated with enhancement of memory detail in young adults and affective positivity in older adults. These findings highlight important age-related shifts in how individuals retrieve autobiographical events and how personally-relevant musical cues may be used to facilitate memory retrieval.

Autobiographical emotional induction in older people through popular songs: Effect of reminiscence bump and enculturation

“…In the context of the present research, there are numerous factors that affect the subjective responses related to music, emotion and memory [4]. Our study thus focuses on some of the variables that have been considered most significant in the current literature [21][22][23][24], such as memory, familiarity, valence, arousal and specificity Autobiographical recall has been shown to be one of the most effective ways of inducing affective states [5], and involves generating personal emotional memories to reactivate emotions from the original emotional experience [26]. This means that by focusing a person's attention on sensory events and responses (sights, smells, sounds, physiological and behavioral reactions) that occurred during an emotional experience, we can maximize the likelihood of reliving an intense emotional experience [27].…”

“…The evidence suggests that emotional music clips can act as a highly successful tool for generating autobiographical memories [22,25,28,29]. This mnemonic enhancement may be associated with the subjective familiarity of musical cues, where highly familiar stimuli have been related to richer memory representations [22].…”

More than a feeling: Emotional cues impact the access and experience of autobiographical memories

“…This is a powerful method to study the emotional effects of a retrieval cue, but often music-evoked remembering is studied using popular or familiar songs (Janata et al, 2007;Krumhansl & Zupnick, 2013). Since song familiarity impacts autobiographical memory retrieval in addition to the emotional content of the cues (Ford, Rubin, & Giovanello, 2016), our choice of novel musical stimuli could have led to different results than those reported in studies using familiar musical stimuli.…”

The Impact of Brazilian Samba on Parkinson’s Disease: Analysis by the Disease Subtypes

“…32 The alterations in individual's mental behavior (UPDRS I) can be justified by the possible cerebral areas activation that are no longer stimulated with the advance of PD and due to marked steps and musical stimulation, increasing their activity, resulting in cognitive behavior improvement of these individuals. 33 In addition, the group with PIGD characteristics presented a different behavior from that expected after the intervention, since there was worsening in EG fatigue scores (CE= -2,3) and a significant improvement in the CG depressive symptoms scores (CE= 4,1/p=0,041). Individuals classified with this subtype of PD tend to find more difficulty with disease progression, either due to the greater depreciation of symptoms or the greater difficulty in the absorption of Levodopa.…”