June 23, 2021
If you have watched TV since the 1990s, the sitcom theme songI’ll Be There for Youhas likely been stuck in your head at one point or another.
New research from the University of California-Davis suggests these experiences are more than a passing nuisance. In fact, they play an important role in helping memories form, not only for the song, but also related life events like hanging out with friends—or watching other people hang with their best buddies onFriends, the Good News Network reports.
“Scientists have known for some time that music evokes autobiographical memories, and that those are among the emotional experiences with music that people cherish most,” says Petr Janata, UC Davis professor of Psychology and co-author of the new study.
The paper, “Spontaneous Mental Replay of Music Improves Memory for Incidentally Associated Event Knowledge,” has been published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.
This new research offers an initial glimpse into these mechanisms and, somewhat surprisingly, finds that the songs that get stuck in your head help that process of strengthening memories as they first form, the authors said.
For their latest study, the researchers worked with 25 to 31 different people in each of three experiments, over three different days, spaced weeks apart. Subjects first listened to unfamiliar music, and then, a week later, listened to the music again, this time paired with likewise unfamiliar movie clips. In one instance, movies were played without music.
The research subjects, all UC Davis undergraduate and graduate students, were subsequently asked to remember as many details as they could from each movie as the music played. They were also quizzed about their recollection of the associated tunes and how often they experienced each of the tunes as an earworm. None of them had formal music training.
The more the tune played, the more accurate the memory, Good News Network reports—and, critically, the more details the person remembered from the specific section of the movie with which the tune was paired.
With only one week between when they saw the movie, and when they were asked to remember as many details from the movie as they could while listening to the movie soundtrack, the effect of repeatedly experiencing a tune from the soundtrack as an earworm resulted in near-perfect retention of the movie details.
These people’s memories, in fact, were as good as when they had first seen the movie. Additionally, most subjects were able to report what they were typically doing when their earworms occurred, and none of them mentioned the associated movies coming to mind at those times.
The authors said they hope the research, which is ongoing, could eventually lead to the development of nonpharmaceutical, music-based interventions to help people suffering from dementia and other neurological disorders to better remember events, people and daily tasks.
Research contact: @goodnewsnetwork
