14/10/2025
DA ZNATE.
Music is more than just background noise; it’s deeply tied to our memories. We’ve long known that tunes can bring back moments from our past, which is why music therapy is often used to help people with Alzheimer’s or dementia recall memories. But scientists are still figuring out exactly how music affects our brains in this way. A new study adds an interesting twist: it’s not just the type of music or whether it’s happy or sad, but how strongly we react emotionally to it that matters for memory.
In the study, researchers had college students look at images of household objects. Later, after listening to different songs, they were shown more images, some new and some from before, and asked to identify them. Surprisingly, whether the students thought the music was happy, sad, familiar, or unfamiliar didn’t change their memory performance much. What really made a difference was how strongly each person felt about the music they heard. The more emotionally moved they were, the better they remembered both details and the big picture of what they had seen. This insight is especially useful for music therapists who work to trigger memories in people with memory loss. Still, researchers noted that since they only used a limited set of songs, future work should take a more personal approach.
RESEARCH PAPER 📄
Fine-tuning the details: post-encoding music differentially impacts general and detailed memory
Kayla Clark, Stephanie L. Leal
Journal of Neuroscience 23 June 2025
