The role of music-induced emotions on recognition memory of filmed events

Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of pairing a comedic movie trailer with emotive music on subsequent recognition memory of the events depicted in the trailer. In an independent groups design, the comedic trailer was paired with happy music (congruent condition) or sad music (incongruent condition). A no music condition served as the control condition. The results showed that participants in the incongruent condition displayed a recognition memory advantage for visual test items over participants in the congruent and control conditions. While changes in self-reported positive and negative affect did not correlate significantly with recognition memory, the perception of emotion-specific categories did. These findings help to establish an empirical basis of ironic contrast techniques and propose an affective component in the integration and representation of audiovisual action that is likely to emerge where a participant perceives or recognizes expressed emotions in music, without necessarily feeling an overall positive or negative affect.

The Role of Physiology, Affect, Behavior and Cognition in Leader Character Activation: A Music Intervention

“…Memory is elicited more effectively when attached to strong emotional events (Croom, 2012;Damjanovic & Kawalec, 2021). Music can be used as a stimulus to influence one's emotions, thus altering or maintaining their affective state, and improving their present cognitive functioning (Croom, 2012;Damjanovic & Kawalec, 2021). This finding supports how music is a powerful and effective tool that can be used to activate character.…”

“…Cognition is mainly influenced by the lyrics in a song by triggering new thoughts, ideas, or drawing on memory (Lesiuk, 2010). In film, for instance, music has been used to enhance the cinematic experience by affecting the viewers' emotions, the perception of character behavior, cueing or priming the viewers to feel a specific emotion to match the character's emotion or event (Damjanovic & Kawalec, 2021).…”

“…This supports the character development model, which places the conditioning and priming as an important foundation to occur first to support the activation of character. Memory is elicited more effectively when attached to strong emotional events (Croom, 2012;Damjanovic & Kawalec, 2021). Music can be used as a stimulus to influence one's emotions, thus altering or maintaining their affective state, and improving their present cognitive functioning (Croom, 2012;Damjanovic & Kawalec, 2021).…”