Popular songs evoke autobiographical memories in younger and older adults: specifying the source

Music holds a unique capacity to involuntarily and rapidly evoke autobiographical memories (AMs), yet the source of its cueing ability is unspecified. It is also unclear how well music continues to serve as a memory cue across the lifespan. In experiment 1, we examined what components of music are most beneficial in evoking AMs. Young adults (M_age = 19.13) were presented with 24 short 15-sec clips of popular songs from their youth as memory cues that were either unmodified, instrumental versions, lyrics-only, or a visual presentation of the song and artist name, intermixed within subjects. If they experienced a memory, they wrote a description of it. Unmodified song clips were most effective at evoking memories, and the number recalled was enhanced in those high in trait music-related reward sensitivity. Given the powerful cueing effect of music on AMs, in experiment 2, we examined whether the findings would generalize to an older adult population and whether music could serve to reduce age-related episodic memory deficits. Strikingly, song cues evoked more AMs in older than in younger adults. In both experiments, we observed a temporal alignment between the year of popularity of the song cue and the time frame of the evoked memory. We propose that songs are particularly effective memory cues because they set a temporal context, constraining the search for AMs to a specific point in time and facilitating access. Songs are powerful memory cues, particularly for older adults who may have difficulty spontaneously recreating context.