[Comparison of the specificity of musically cued autobiographical memories]

This paper compared the specificity of recollections of autobiographical memories where musical cues for events were varied. We used music which was popular in the past as cues which were related to a larger number of past individual events (frequent events cues) and music which was typically only sung at graduation ceremonies as cues which were related to a smaller number of events (rare events cues). In the instructed retrieval condition, participants were told to listen to the music and to recall past events, whereas in incidental retrieval condition, the instruction was only to listen to the music. Then participants were asked to describe what they recalled while hearing the music. When frequent events musical cues were played, the specificities of the recalled events were higher in the instructed retrieval condition than in the incidental retrieval condition. In contrast, when rare events musical cues were played, there were no differences in the specificities of the recalled events.