What’s next?? Fork to be found in kitchen?
A groundbreaking new research paper out of Goldsmiths University of London has revealed that low-energy acoustic songs do, in fact, evoke memories of sadness.
While even a particularly tone deaf pre-teen could probably have told you the same, the question that science hasn’t yet answered is whether musical features can predict the qualities of the autobiographical memory they evoke in the listener.
“We demonstrated that memories of experiences that are highly social tended to be associated with less acoustic and more energetic, danceable … songs, whereas memories of vivid, unique and self-important experiences were associated with more acoustic, contemplative … songs,” the study, published in PLOS One, said.
“These results are in line with previous studies which have reported that positive music stimuli (danceable being a common characteristic) cue more social and energising memories compared to more negative (less upbeat) music, and that less arousing music elicits more vivid and unique memories than high arousing music.”
Basically, where Bon Iver’s re: stacks made people recall memories related to adoration, calmness, romance or sadness, Fetty Wap’s Trap Queen made people recall more social, exciting and high energy memories.
The 233 adult participants were subjected to 10 15-second-long clips of songs which appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 chart when they were between the ages of nine and 19. (One is reminded of The Men Who Stare at Goats.)
The participants were then asked to indicate when they recalled a memory. If they said they did, they would be prompted to describe the memory and rate their liking and familiarity of the song.
Descriptive statistics for the autobiographical memories included ratings on vividness, valence, arousal, uniqueness, importance and social content.
Nostalgia was the most frequently reported emotional state to be evoked, followed by joy, excitement and amusement.
Participants were also asked to self-select one song that evoked specific autobiographical memories.
The memories associated with self-selected songs tended to be more specific, vivid, positive, unique and important to participants than those evoked by the random sample of popular tunes from their teenagehood.
One potential application of this research, as proposed by the researchers, lies in reminiscence therapies for people with dementia.
