junho de 2015

Ana Margarida Silva Gonçalves

Autobiographical memories of young adults elicited by positive musical stimuli

Universidade do MinhoEscola de Psicologia

Dissertação de MestradoMestrado Integrado em Psicologia

Trabalho realizado sob orientação do

Professor Doutor Pedro Barbas de Albuquerque

Escola de Psicologia, Universidade do Minho

e coorientação da

Professora Doutora Véronique Quaglino

Université de Lille 3

Université de Picardie Jules Verne Amiens

junho de 2015

Ana Margarida Silva Gonçalves

Autobiographical memories of young adults elicited by positive musical stimuli

Universidade do MinhoEscola de Psicologia

DECLARAÇÃO

Nome: Ana Margarida Silva Gonçalves

Endereço eletrónico: a55992@alunos.uminho.pt

Número do Cartão de Cidadão: 13749310

Título da dissertação: Autobiographical memories of young adults elicited by positive

musical stimuli

Orientador: Professor Doutor Pedro Barbas de Albuquerque, Escola de Psicologia,

Universidade do Minho

Coorientador: Professora Doutora Véronique Quaglino, Université de Lille 3, Université de

Picardie Jules Verne Amiens

Ano de conclusão: 2015

Designação do Mestrado: Mestrado Integrado em Psicologia

É AUTORIZADA A REPRODUÇÃO INTEGRAL DESTA DISSERTAÇÃO APENAS

PARA EFEITOS DE INVESTIGAÇÃO, MEDIANTE DECLARAÇÃO ESCRITA DO

INTERESSADO, QUE A TAL SE COMPROMETE;

Universidade do Minho, 12 de junho de 2015

Assinatura: ______________________________________________

ii

Table of Contents

Acknowlegments ……………………………...…………………………………………...…iii

Resumo ………………………………………….……………………………………...…….iv

Abstract ………………………………………….……………………………………………v

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….…6

Autobiographical memories ................................................................................................... 6

Music and emotion ................................................................................................................. 8

Music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) ........................................................... 9

Method ..................................................................................................................................... 11

Participants ........................................................................................................................... 11

Stimuli .................................................................................................................................. 11

Study design ......................................................................................................................... 12

Procedure .............................................................................................................................. 12

Results ...................................................................................................................................... 13

Autobiographical memories during individual’s lifetime period ......................................... 13

Social context during individual’s lifetime period ............................................................... 14

Ratings of autobiographical memories valence .................................................................... 15

Frequency and recency of the songs ..................................................................................... 16

Ratings of PANAS scores..................................................................................................... 16

Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 17

References ................................................................................................................................ 21

iii

Acknowledgments

“Les grandes personnes sont décidément tout à fait extraordinaires.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince

Immeasurable gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Pedro Albuquerque, for his trust,

guidance, and encouragement. You have been devoted and highly supportive not only in this

last year, but since the very beginning. You have always given me your hand helping me cross

all the possible bridges, giving me the needed fuel and helping me build this addiction to

research. For that and everything, I cannot thank you enough.

I am also grateful to my co-supervisor Véronique Quaglino for all her support and

motivation, and to Professors Yann Coello and Séverine Casalis for all the opportunities they

have provided me with.

I take this opportunity to express gratitude to all of the Memory Research Group, for all their

dedication and helpful suggestions.

My gratefulness to professor Carla Martins, professor Ana Pinheiro, professor Laurent

Sparrow, Mr. Brandão, Mrs. Lurdes, Mrs. Sandra and Mrs. Graça, for all their support and help

in several fields of my academic path. To Maria Teresa and Jane Rush, for all their kindness.

“Thank God for books and music and things I can think about”

Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

To Nuno, for all his amazing support. To Ana, my dearest friend. To Chris, for all the

incredible care and friendship, and especially to Joana, Daniela, and André, for all the love.

To all my friends and colleagues, who have directly or indirectly, brought some magic to

this life: my Lene, JB, Margarida, Pedro, Rui, Joh, Catarina, Xico, Israel, Joana, Zeberitas, my

wonderful Neuroteam, my proudly academic family, and the Lilloises. To all my partners in

AEPUM, ANEP (especially you, Lénia), and to the strong and always: my Zé, Miguel, Mariana.

“L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince

I end with the most important support in life: my family. Obrigada a toda a minha

família. Ao papá por todo o esforço e dedicação; à mamã pelo amor e devoção; aos meus irmãos

Pedro e Nuno por todo o apoio e paciência. A ti também, meu tio, que sempre tiveste a coragem

de lutar. Este esforço e trabalho não teria sido possível sem todos vocês.

iv

Memórias autobiográficas de jovens adultos elicitadas por estímulos musicais positivos

Resumo: Os estudos no âmbito das memórias autobiográficas têm mostrado a presença de

três componentes principais: amnésia infantil, efeito de recência e explosão mnésica (Rubin,

1986). Investigações prévias sugerem que as memórias autobiográficas elicitadas por

estímulos positivos estão associadas com episódios relevantes, específicos e geralmente

agradáveis (Krumhansl & Zupnick, 2013). A música desempenha um papel importante e

altamente emocional e social nas vidas das pessoas. O objetivo primordial deste estudo foi

explorar as características das memórias autobiográficas em jovens adultos, quando

despoletadas por estímulos musicais positivos. Antes e depois do procedimento, foi

administrado o questionário PANAS (Galinha & Pais-Ribeiro, 2005). Durante o

procedimento, os participantes ouviram clips de músicas populares (10 segundos), e tiveram

de avaliar a memória autobiográfica, caso tenha sido elicitada, em termos de valência,

importância e contexto social associado (memórias relacionadas com os pais, consigo mesmo,

com amigos, outros significativos). Os resultados indicam a presença da amnésia infantil e do

efeito de recência; diferentes proporções de memórias autobiográficas associadas a distintos

contextos sociais em diferentes momentos do período de vida; emoções positivas aumentam,

quando comparadas com o início da experiência, levando-nos a concluir que a música,

enquanto pista desencadeadora de memórias autobiográficas, afeta positivamente a disposição

emocional.

Palavras-chave: memórias autobiográficas, amnésia infantil, música, jovens adultos,

disposição emocional

v

Autobiographical memories of young adults elicited by positive musical stimuli

Abstract: Studies on autobiographical memories have shown the presence of three main

components: childhood amnesia, recency effect and reminiscence bump (Rubin, 1986).

Previous research suggests that autobiographical memories elicited by positive stimuli are

associated with highly, specific and generally pleasant episodes (Krumhansl & Zupnick,

2013). Music has an important and highly emotional and social role in individual’s lives. The

primary goal of this study was to explore the characteristics of autobiographical memories

when triggered by positive musical stimuli with young adults. Before and after the procedure,

participants answered a PANAS Questionnaire (Galinha & Pais-Ribeiro, 2005). During the

procedure, they heard a popular song clip (10sec), and they had to rate the possible elicited

autobiographical memory mainly in terms of valence, importance and social context

associated (memory related to parents, self, friends, significant others). The findings indicate

the presence of childhood amnesia and recency effect; different proportions of

autobiographical memories associated with distinct social contexts during the lifetime period;

positive emotions increased when compared with the beginning of the experience, leading us

to conclude that music, as a cue of autobiographical memories, affects positively the

emotional disposal.

Keywords: autobiographical memories, childhood amnesia, music, young adults, emotional

mood

6

Introduction

The study of autobiographical memories has increased mainly in the past 20 years, with a

higher focus on verbal and visual stimuli. With evidence showing that songs become

associated with events from a person’s life so that hearing a piece of music retrieves

memories of the original experience (Baumgartner, 1992), the interest in music as a cue for

autobiographical memories has increased. However, research is still scarce, regarding the

empirical study of characteristics of the autobiographical memories with music as a stimulus.

In this study we tried to explore autobiographical memories of young adults, using music as a

cue, given its high emotional and specific role in people’s lives.

Autobiographical memories

The concept of autobiographical memory refers to the memory linked to events, specific

episodes, and conceptual, generic and schematic knowledge of experiences in individual’s

lives (Conway, 2001). The main recent model was proposed by Conway and Pleydell-Pearce

(2000) and aims to explain the mechanisms behind autobiographical memories, generated in

what they called the self-memory system (SMS). This system is characterized by a reciprocal

relation between an executive process system with current goals of the working self and a

complex long-term memory knowledge base. The working self consists of a complex

hierarchy of currently active goals through which memories are encoded and retrieved

(Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). In the SMS, the working self modulates access to the

knowledge base, regulating the construction of new memories in the encoding and retrieval

phase, shaping cues to activate autobiographical memory knowledge structures. Specific

autobiographical memories are formed when stable patterns of activation exist over

interconnected representations of autobiographical knowledge and associated episodic

memories, in response to the effects of highly specific cues (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce,

2000).

The autobiographical memory of an event carries powerful self-defining evaluations that

persist over long periods of time (Williams, Conway, & Cohen, 2007) and is generally placed

in an appropriate life period (Cady, Harris, & Kanppenberger, 2008). Memories from some

periods may be more numerous and more vivid than those from other periods (Cohen &

Conway, 2007). Autobiographical memories have been studied using Galton’s technique,

considering that the memory must be located in space (where?), must have the subject as a

central figure (with whom?) and must be datable (when?) (Galton, 1879). This technique

7

allowed the noting of the distribution of memories across the lifespan for the first time, where

important periods of development of the self are present in a macrostructure pattern of

memory retrieval over an individual’s lifespan (Rubin, 1998). Rubin (1986) noted three

components of the lifespan distribution of autobiographical memories: 1) childhood amnesia -

absence of memories from the earliest years of life; 2) recency effect - greater ability to recall

recent events when compared to older events; 3) reminiscence bump - an increase, or bump,

for word-cued autobiographical memories from the ages 10 to 30, only observed in people

over the age of about 35 years old (Rubin & Berntsen, 2003) There are many explanations for

the phenomena of childhood amnesia and reminiscence bump. Childhood amnesia can be

related to the incomplete development of language, or to the lack of neurological development

of the child brain giving the incapacity to encode autobiographical memories (Josselyn &

Frankland, 2012). An alternative explanation would be the development of a cognitive self (or

Theory of Mind) with the lack of capacity for organizing autobiographical experiences and

retaining memories from the past (Perner, 2000; Williams, Conway, & Cohen, 2007). In the

period corresponding to the reminiscence bump, during late adolescence and early adulthood,

there are many first-time experiences that were vivid, emotional, and important milestones

(Janssen, Chessa & Murre, 2005; Janssen, Rubin, & St. Jacques, 2011) – encoded more

strongly than memories from other periods (Krumhansl & Zupnick, 2013). This effect may

also result from hormonal and other neurobiological changes (Holbrook & Schindler, 1991).

This period is characterized by novel experiences with quick changes that give place to a

stable period, thus becoming a period of fast changes and therefore being more frequently

accessed (Williams, Conway, & Cohen, 2007). Individuals employ retrieval strategies to

narrow their memory search, restricting their search to only significant events (Janssen,

2015), and this seems to be homogeneous among individuals and stable across time

(Habermas, Hatiboğlu, & Köber, 2015). Conway and Rubin (1993) characterized this effect as

one of the most reliable of memory researches, made astonishing by the similar results of the

lifespan curve with the presence of childhood amnesia and reminiscence bump between five

different countries (Conway, 2005). The type of cue affects the specificity of the memory

recalled, but these components have been observed in the recall of memories cued by different

stimuli, such as words (Koppel & Berntsen, 2015), or odors (Rubin, 2015). And what about

music as a stimulus?

8

Music and emotion

Compared to traditional memory stimuli, the memory cued by music can be considered a

special case, mainly due to its much richer temporal structure (Schulkind, 2009). Music

unfolds over time and its social and cultural omnipresence plays an important role in most

people’s lives. Music is present in every culture and it intertwines with specific episodes in

people’s lives (Janata, Tomic, & Rakowski, 2007). A practical example is the frequent use

that the advertising industry makes of music, under the assumption that it will enhance the

memory for a product and its attributes (Schulkind, Hennis, & Rubin, 1999). Music acquires

its emotional meaning through association with consequential events (Krumhansl, 2002).

Music has qualities that are difficult to verbalize but is associated with highly emotional,

vivid, specific, and generally pleasant autobiographical memories (Krumhansl & Zupnick,

2013). Such strong emotions can be recalled by a listener exposed to specific song fragments,

and this effect can also be observed in the long-term, several years later (Eschrich, Münte, &

Altenmüller, 2008). Levitin and Cook (1996) have shown that listeners seem to retain a lot of

information about the music they know and that they are very accurate in reproducing familiar

music, although familiarity with a song does not imply that an autobiographical memory will

be triggered (Janata et al., 2007). One characteristic that distinguishes music from other forms

of communication is the presence of a melody. Its close link to emotion and memory has been

shown to enhance memory retrieval, facilitating the learning process. For example, Wallace

(1994) showed that hearing information embedded in the lyrics of a song results in better

recall than hearing it as speech. In general, music comprises structures that can be very rich,

which chunk words and phrases, identify line lengths, identify stress patterns, and add

emphasis as well as focusing listeners on surface characteristics (Schulkind et al., 1999;

Wallace, 1994).

Autobiographical memories have the characteristic of timing an event and one of the most

interesting values of music is that it is possible to date a song for the simple reason that a

specific music is released on a specific date. Most studies have focused on various particular

components of songs, like temporal structure or attributes of the musical pieces such as the

title of the song (Schulkind et al., 1999), suggesting that there are differences between

melodies, titles and lyrics as cues (Peynircioğlu, Rabinovitz, & Thompson, 2007) or the

neural organization of memory for songs – enabling the use of music as a tool for eliciting

memories in patients with cognitive impairment (Collett, Lee, Shabahang, Vanstone, &

Cuddy, 2012) such as Alzheimer patients (Cuddy & Duffin, 2005; Gerdner, 2000) and music

9

having a strong positive effect on effortless memory retrieval in an aging population (Collett

et al., 2012), with early evidence that music engages diverse regions of the brain.

Music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs)

Particularly interesting is the association between musical experiences and highly

emotional events, considered as one of the basic processes that establishes musical emotions

(Baumgartner, 1992; Janata et al., 2007; Krumhansl & Zupnick, 2013). Rubin (1998)

suggested that knowledge about these domains is not associated with personal

autobiographical events and some other researchers claim that people confuse their own

emotional experience with the emotion expressed by the music (Konecni, 2008). Schulkind et

al. (1999) observed in a population of older adults that the higher the emotional response to a

song, the more likely information about the song would be retrieved, and vice-versa. Music-

Evoked Autobiographical Memories (MEAMs) are related to both positive and negative

emotional experience (Janata et al., 2007; Vuokoski & Eerola, 2012), and the fact that the

individual can feel the actual emotion instead of just reading one word on the screen suggests

an easier retrieval of a similar memory (Cady et al., 2008). The principal emotions related to

memories often triggered by music are happiness, love, joy, excitement as positive emotions;

and sadness, loneliness, fear, and anger as negative emotions (Barrett et al., 2010; Janata et

al., 2007; Krumhansl & Zupnick, 2013; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O’Connor, 1987),

frequently from the period of adolescence and early adulthood (Holbrook & Schindler, 1991).

Much experimental evidence suggests a more expedite recall of positive experiences than

negative ones, and that both arousal and emotionality are associated with better recall at

longer retention intervals (Cady et al., 2008; Janata et al., 2007; Eschrich et al., 2008; Rubin

& Berntsen, 2003). One particularly complex emotion is nostalgia, which has been observed

to mainly originate a positive affect that seems to counteract sadness and loneliness, but the

fact is that it is associated with both joy and sadness, both positive and negative emotions

(Barrett et al., 2010). Other studies have shown better memory performance for stimuli with

negative valence (Eschrich et al., 2008), with relatively high levels of anger and disgust for

disliked or unfamiliar songs (Barrett et al., 2010). Furthermore Vuoskoski and Eerola (2012)

refer that listening to sad music can induce sadness-related effects on memory and judgment,

and therefore autobiographical memories can contribute to sadness induced by self-selected

music. It seems that emotional feelings related to the stimuli serve as retrieval cues for the

emotional memories (Bower, 1981), with a congruency effect of the cue valence and the

valence of the retrieved memory, though cue arousal seems to not affect arousal ratings of the

10

retrieved memory (Schulkind & Woldorf, 2005), and the increased emotional arousal seems

to lead to a richer memory experience (Ford, Addis, & Giovanello, 2012).

Krumhansl and Zupnick (2013) introduced the idea that music transmitted from generation

to generation shapes autobiographical memories explained in terms of intergenerational

influences (the context of their personal memories). In this scope, music heard during

childhood that was influenced by peers, makes a lasting impression on children’s

autobiographical memories and emotional responses. Are we influenced by the musical

preferences of the peers, or do we associate a specific social context to a certain lifetime

period?

Given the strong influence of emotional organization in MEAMs and the presence of a

congruence effect between the valence of the stimuli and the valence of the enhanced memory

(Schulkind & Woldorf, 2005), it is seemingly important to control the valence of musical

stimuli in the retrieval of autobiographical memories using the same valence between the

stimuli. This strong association between music and highly emotional and specific

autobiographical memories, usually from emotional periods of life associated with important

life events of an individual, motivates the general goal of this study – to investigate the

characteristics of autobiographical memories using positive song excerpts as retrieval cues in

young adults.

The present study includes only young adults, and based on previous research (Rubin,

1986) the following can be expected: 1) to observe in the lifetime period the component of

childhood amnesia and recency effect; 2) to ascertain differences across distinct social

contexts during the individual’s lifetime period. In other words, we expect to see different

contexts of the period of life associated with the respective retrieved memories (e.g., growing

up with their parents, alone, with friends or other significant persons). Knowing that the

stimuli will have a positive valence, we also expect 3) to observe a positive association

between the positivity of the stimuli and the positivity of the memory evoked by the music; 4)

that songs which were heard more frequently and recently enhance more MEAMs; 5) that

music as an emotional stimulus and autobiographical cue improves the emotional mood. As

the stimuli used in this study have a positive valence, and because this affect influences the

mood of the congruence effect in autobiographical recall (Drace, 2013), it seems possible to

predict that the emotional state of the participants will be congruent with the stimuli.

11

Method

Participants

Forty-three undergraduate students (31 females) from de University of Minho (Portugal)

participated in the experiment. Their mean age was 21 years (SD = 1.40). The study goals and

experience were explained to all participants and all gave informed written consent. All the

participants received course credits for their participation in this experiment.

Stimuli

The song choices were collected from Billboard® magazine, Blitz® and Punch®

magazines, and Apple iTunes Store® (music section). Each music clip had ten seconds,

containing the refrain in order to enhance the most effective cue for identification of the

respective song. The musical genre of the songs was “popular music”, as that has been shown

to be the most effective in eliciting memories that are somewhat or strongly autobiographical

(e.g., 30% of randomly selected popular songs from a corpus of over 1500 songs, in the Janata

study – Janata et al., 2007). The songs used as stimuli were selected from the normative study

(N=664), using the Google Forms®. The participants of this normative study were instructed

to rate the affective valence, arousal and to select the predicted decade of the music release.

The affective valence was defined as “emotional value on a continuum from negative to

positive (or unpleasant to pleasant)”, similar definition of Eschrich, Münte, and Altenmüller

(2008), rated on a 5 scale-rate with 0 representing negative and 5 representing positive. The

arousal was defined as “the excitation level elicited by the music (ranging from very relaxing

to very exciting)” (Eschrich et al., 2008), rated on a 5 scale-rate with 0 representing low

arousal and 5 representing high arousal. The musical stimuli were divided into 5 different

decades (1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010) and into two different conditions of nationality

(national and international songs), in which the arousal and valence did not differ between the

groups. These conditions were necessary to control the frequency and the recency effect of the

stimulus. Schulkind (2009) observed differences between young adults and older adults in the

free recall of titles, artist and lyrics, with different decades of popularity of the songs. The

participants predicted the decade of the music release in a way to control the hit rate of the

song’s decade release. Based on previous research, there is a congruency effect between

musical stimuli and retrieved autobiographical memory’s valences. In that way, this

normative study was important to serve as a reference to keep valence and arousal similar

between all stimuli, using only music with positive valence (see Appendix A).

12

A total of 20 songs were selected for the experiment: four songs per decade (ten national

and ten international). To participate in the experiment, the subjects could not have

participated before in the normative study. They answered the Positive Affect Negative Affect

Scale (PANAS - Galinha & Pais-Ribeiro, 2005), that measures both positive and negative

affect using 20 adjectives (Interested, Irritable, Distressed, Alert, Excited, Ashamed, Upset,

Inspired, Strong, Nervous, Guilty, Determined, Scared, Attentive, Hostile, Jittery,

Enthusiastic, Active, Proud, and Afraid) in terms of affect valence, on a 5 scale-rate, with 1

representing very little or not at all, and 5 representing extremely.

Study design

This experimental study is based on an intra-participant design. The independent variables

are (IV): (a) decade of release of the song (1970s, 1980s, 1990, 2000s, and 2010s); (b)

nationality of the song (national and international). For each decade, the same number of

songs for both national and international were included.

The dependent variables are (DV): (a) frequency of autobiographical memories retrieved;

(b) valence of autobiographical memories (negative or positive on a 5 scale-rate); (c)

importance of autobiographical memories (low or high on a 5 scale-rate); (d) affective

salience of autobiographical memories (presence of the emotions of happiness, love, joy,

excitement, sadness, loneliness, fear, anger, nostalgia as a negative feeling, nostalgia as a

positive feeling); (e) context of the autobiographical memories (whether the retrieved memory

is from a period of their life when they were growing up with their parents, alone, with friends

or other significant persons, or even if they don’t associate do any specific context).

The dependent variables related to the song itself are: (a) the frequency of song hearing

(never, rarely, once in a while, often, and always); and (b) the last time the song was heard (in

the last day, last week, last month, last year, last decade, more than a decade, never).

Procedure

The participants answered the PANAS questionnaire before and after the experiment, to

allow us to understand how our procedure affected their emotional disposition. Then, the

participants answered a questionnaire about personal information (gender, age and age of the

parents).

Each stimulus was presented one at a time, in a random order. After each one, if an episode

of their lives was elicited, the participants reported orally whether the song retrieved

memories with autobiographical salience. In order to be considered an autobiographical

13

memory, it would have to fulfill the following criteria: the memory must be located in space

(where?), have the subject as a central figure (with whom?) and be datable (when?).

Additionally, they had to classify the episode in terms of valence on a 5 scale-rate (with 1

representing negative and 5 representing positive) and importance (with 1 representing less

important and 5 representing really important) of the retrieved memory, being only

considerer as an autobiographical memory only the memories with an importance rated above

3, were not included being considered as an autobiographical memory. The participants also

classified their affective salience, i.e., which emotions were present in the retrieved memory

(happiness, love, joy, excitement, sadness, loneliness, fear, anger, nostalgia as a negative

feeling, and nostalgia as a positive feeling). After that, the participants reported the social

context of the memory: whether the retrieved memory was from a period of their life when

they were growing up with their parents, alone, with friends or other significant persons, or

even if they didn’t associate it with any specific context. Lastly, they specified how frequently

they had heard the song (never, rarely, once in a while, often, or always); and when was the

last moment they had heard it (the day before, last week, last month, last year, last decade,

more than a decade ago, or never).

Results

Exploratory analysis was used to decide whether or not to conduct parametric versus

nonparametric statistical testing assuming the rejection of a null hypothesis at the p = .05

level. All statistical analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics software, v.22 (IBM,

New York). No differences were found between the conditions of nationality and the decade

of the songs. In that way, all the songs were grouped under the same condition.

Autobiographical memories during the individual’s lifespan

The first aim was to examine the distribution of autobiographical memories across the

lifetime period, and whether or not the components of childhood amnesia and recency effect

were present in the individual’s lifetime. A one-way within-subjects ANOVA was made to

compare different age groups in the lifetime of young adults (0-4 years-old; 5-9 years-old; 10-

14 years-old; 15-19 years-old; and 20-23 years-old). It showed that there are differences

between the number of autobiographical memories across the lifetime period, F(1, 820) =

30.688, p < .001 η2 = .422, as presented in Figure 1. In this figure, it is possible to observe

14

that the first group age (0-4 years old) has an absence of memories, indicating the existence of

childhood amnesia. In the fourth and fifth age group (from 15 to 23 years-old) it is also

possible to observe the recency period, shown by a higher number of memories in the most

recent years of an individual’s lifetime, compared to prior years.

Figure 1. The distribution of autobiographical memories cued by music across the lifetime

period. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals.

These significant statistical differences are possible between the second age group (5-9

years-old) and the fourth age group (15-19 years-old), p < .001, 95% CI [-.596,-.263];

between the second age group (5-9 years-old) and the fifth age group (20-23 years-old) p <

.05, 95% CI [-.361,-.031]; between the third age group (10-14 years-old) and the fourth age

group (15-19 years-old) p < .001, 95% CI [-.591,-.248]; and between the third age group (10-

14 years-old) and the fifth age group (20-23 years-old) p < .05, 95% CI [-.351,-.018], after the

adjustment for multiple comparisons with Bonferroni. In other words, the second and third

age groups (5-14 years-old) differ from the two other age groups, i.e., the fourth and fifth age

groups (15-23 years-old).

Social context during individual’s lifetime period

The second aim was to examine the differences across different social contexts during the

individual’s lifetime period. One-way within-subjects ANOVA (parents vs. self vs. friends vs.

significant others) showed that there are different contexts for the period of life associated

0,00

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0 - 4 5 - 9 10 - 14 15 - 19 20 - 23

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15

with the autobiographical memories retrieved F(1, 346) = 4.603, p < .05 η2 = .099. This is

possible to see in Figure 2, seeking to show how the proportion of autobiographical memories

related to a specific context varies across the lifetime period.

Therefore, it seemed important to ascertain if a specific social context varies across the

lifetime period in the distribution of associated autobiographical memories associated. No

statistical differences were found in the social context of parents. One-way within-subjects

ANOVA showed statistical differences in the social context of self between the age group of

five until nine years old and ten until 14 years old p < .05, 95% CI [-.023,-.002]. One-way

within-subjects ANOVA showed statistical differences in the social context of friends

between the age group of five until nine years old and ten until 14 years old p < .001, 95%

CI [-.020,-.006], and between the age group of ten until 14 years old and 15 until 19 years old

p < .05, 95% CI [.021,.017]. One-way within-subjects ANOVA showed statistical differences

in the social context of significant others between the age group of five until nine years old

and ten until 14 years old p < .01, 95% CI [-.012,-.001]. It seems that each specific social

context is more relevant in a specific lifetime period of the young adults.

Figure 2. Proportion (amount of memories of a specific context in a specific age group) of

autobiographical memories associated with a specific social context across the lifespan.

Ratings of autobiographical memories valence

The third aim was to examine the association between the emotional valence of the music

presented as autobiographical cue and the valence of the memory evoked by the music.

Taking into account that there were only used positive stimuli, to analyse this association we

0

0,1

0,2

0,3

0,4

0,5

0,6

0,7

0,8

0,9

1

From 0 to 4 From 5 to 9 From 10 to 14 From 15 to 19 From 20 to 23

Pro

port

ion o

f S

oci

al C

onte

xt

Parents Self Friends Significant Others

16

applied a Pearson correlation coefficient. Even if the frequency of memories rated as positive

(89.45%), no correlation between the valence of the stimuli and the valence of the

autobiographical memories elicited was found, r(19) = .318, p = .172.

Frequency and recency of the songs

No statistical differences between the decades of the songs release and the number of the

autobiographical memories elicited were found. This means that, in this study with young

adults, a popular song from the decade of the 90s does not specifically trigger more

autobiographical memories than a popular song from the 70s. In other words, the recency of

the released decade of the song has no differences with the number of MEAMs. So, what

makes a song to evoke more autobiographical songs – the frequency or the recency when the

song was heard? The fourth aim was to examine if a song rated as more frequently heard

evokes more autobiographical memories, and on the same level, if a song rated as more

recently heard evokes more autobiographical memories. With regards to this, a Pearson

correlation coefficient was made to verify the correlation between the number of

autobiographical memories and the rating of frequency and recency of the songs. The

correlation between frequency and recency of the song and number of autobiographical

memories was low, r(19) =.315, p = .176, and r(19) =.318, p = .172, respectively, showing

that there is no correlation between the higher frequency and recency and the number of

autobiographical memories.

Ratings of PANAS scores

The fifth aim examined whether the participants had a change in their emotional mood

during the experiment. A paired sample t-test showed that the emotional mood improved

during the experiment of autobiographical memories cued by music, t(19) = 3.073 p < .01, d =

.66 95% CI [-.245,-.079]. Knowing that the higher value was five, it seems that the mean of

the emotional mood of the participants became more positive after the experiment.

Table 1

Mean (M) and standard deviation (SD) values for the PANAS adjectives before and after

the experiment.

Before the experiment After the experiment

PANAS Adjectives 3.69 (1.15) 3.93 (0.89)

17

Discussion

In this study we aimed to verify the distribution of autobiographical memories of young

adults across their lifetime period, and their associated social context, using positive music as

a cue.

This study yielded five main results. Firstly, we found that the distribution of retrieved

memories across the life period is characterized by an absence of autobiographical memories

in the first years of life (until four years of age), a phenomenon named childhood amnesia;

and an increased bump of autobiographical memories in the last years of the participants’ life

periods (after the age of 15 years), with a decreasing of memories in the prior years of the

moment that the memories are being elicited, a phenomenon named recency effect, proposed

previously by Rubin and Schulkind (1997).

Previously published studies suggest that the presence of childhood amnesia, recency

effect and reminiscence bump is consistent across gender, education, and culture (Janssen,

Chessa, & Murre, 2005), with different types of stimuli (Koppel & Berntsen, 2015; Rubin,

2015), and with this study it is possible to find the phenomena of childhood amnesia and

recency effect in young adults using music as a specific stimulus, along with autobiographical

memories with greater detail. The model devised by Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000)

postulates that autobiographical memories are the result of goal processing, supporting the

idea of this study, i.e., that music as a cue activates autobiographical memory knowledge

structure. In other words, the current goals related to memories that are encoded and retrieved

can be shaped by music as a cue to active autobiographical memory knowledge structures. In

young adults, this fact is highly important for the critical period in the formation of the self

across the lifetime period, since this is the moment of the prototypical life-events, the many

first-time and specific experiences that will be encoded more strongly than memories from

other periods, as a gradual development of the ability to retain longer and until later memories

of specific and important past event (Janssen, Chessa & Murre, 2005; Janssen, Rubin, & St.

Jacques, 2011; Krumhansl & Zupnick, 2013). For the most part of the studies older adults are

used with regards to the fact that they evoke more specific autobiographical memories and

strong emotions from later periods in their lives (Schulking et al., 1999), making it possible to

have a distribution of the lifespan with the three components present. As the reminiscence

bump is only observed in people over the age of 35, the non-finding of reminiscence bump in

18

our data is in accordance with that was expected from the theory. So, it is highly probable that

the experiences that young adults are having in this specific moment of life, that in this study

coincides with the higher number of autobiographical memories presented in the curve of

recency effect, could be characterized by the period of reminiscence bump in the future.

Such finding is also crucial to explore the absence of memories in very early life events.

One of the main explanations of childhood amnesia is the lack of language development.

However, music is composed of melody and rhythm and not necessarily of lyrics and with

this study it was possible to verify the presence of that phenomenon. So, these results are

supported by recent studies suggesting that a decreasing vulnerability of mnemonic traces that

slows the rate of forgetting as the neural, cognitive and mnemonic processes become more

efficient really seems to exist (Bauer, 2015). In this study they were found no differences

between national and international songs were found, showing that a popular song is

recognized and retrieves the same number of memories across the lifetime, despite that

condition.

Secondly, we found that there are different social contexts of autobiographical memories

for different age groups. It is possible that hearing a fragment of a song triggers the recall of a

specific episode of one’s life, and that that episode can be related to a specific context.

Previous research associates lifetime periods related to school (early, grade, middle, high, and

college) with different types of autobiographical memories cued by music (Cady et al., 2008),

and with an intergenerational influence of songs transmitted by parents (Krumhansl &

Zupnick, 2013). In this study we showed that autobiographical memories are associated with

social contexts, and they vary with different age periods In our childhood (from five to nine

years of age) the presence of memories associated with parents is more evident, which makes

sense given the typical presence of the family in that lifetime period. As time goes on,

autobiographical memories become more related to friends and significant others, probably

due to the higher proximity and influence of peers and the development of personal identity

during that lifetime period. Popular music influences social contexts throughout different

periods of time (Cady et al., 2008). However, in this study there were songs from different

decades of release, including decades prior to the participants birth. So, the association of

autobiographical memories with a social context gives a strong meaning and a specific

importance to the memory. Could the social content of autobiographical memories be the

factor that makes that an autobiographical memory? It would be interesting to investigate

these social contexts with different stimuli, other than music, or in a different culture that

varies the proximity of the peers across the lifetime period.

19

A study of Krumhansl and Zupnick (2013) also examined older adults to find

intergenerational influences of music such as the cue of autobiographical data, showing that

music from their youth is recognized more often. In this study there were found no differences

between the different decades of the song release and the distribution of MEAMs across the

lifetime were found, which means that young adults do not have more memories for more

recent songs, in terms of decade release of the song. Our results show a low correlation

between either the frequency or the recency of the rated stimuli in the experience, and the

higher number of autobiographical memories. This low correlation can be explained by the

familiarity effect of the stimuli. In other words, the more frequent the exposure to a certain

song, the less likely it is to be related to a specific, vivid and high emotional episode of our

lives. A study of Brentar, Neuendorf, and Armstrong (1994) supports the idea that for songs

with high exposure frequency, the effect of the positive affect with a song is opposite to what

was stated previously. This may explain that, even if popular music is more familiar and

easily recognized, it does not mean that the most frequently listened songs enhance more

autobiographical memories.

Almost all the autobiographical memories were rated with positive valence, and most of

the emotions related to the triggered memory were also positive. If the stimuli only has

positive valence, and it seems to have a congruency effect on a cue and the retrieved memory

valence (Schulkind & Woldorf, 2005), these results support the fact that exposure to a

positive and generally pleasant stimulus, seems to have a positive effect on one’s emotional

levels. We found that employing music as positive stimuli can change the emotional mood of

the participants. This is supported by a previous theory based on Bower (1981) concerning the

relationship between memory and emotion, and the positive correlation between pieces of

music and the degree of the emotional response triggered (Janata et al., 2007). This is

important in several fields, but mainly in mood induction not only in daily-life, but also when

considering that music can provide a strong positive effect on effortless memory retrieval in

an aging population (Collett et al., 2012), or even in marketing and advertising (Baumgartner,

1992). There were no high correlations between the higher positivity of the stimuli and the

autobiographical memory retrieved. In other words, we cannot assume that a song rated as

more positive necessarily leads to a more positive autobiographical memory.

Furthermore, it is quite difficult to ensure that the rating of valence of the stimuli is only

related to the music itself without any influence from other variables. For instance, with music

as a high emotional cue of autobiographical memories, we cannot be sure that even if the

participant is asked to rate a specific song, he will rate only the stimuli without associating it

20

with different emotions, contexts or other cued memories. Despite the fact that we studied

only a specific and small cohort of college students that may not be generalized to the overall

population, a few comparisons were guaranteed. Therefore, our findings support previous

literature suggesting that songs can work as stimuli to produce retrieval of autobiographical

memories in different associated social contexts and that listening to positive music can

improve the well-being of the participants through the retrieval of what can be considered

largely as overall good memories. This has a major implication in the context of applied

clinical and neurological practice, since music can be a tool for eliciting memories in patients

with cognitive impairment (Collett et al., 2012), such as Alzheimer’s patients (Cuddy &

Duffin, 2005; Gerdner, 2000). Mental health professionals, thus, should see music as a

possible tool for therapeutically enhancing mood. Further research should focus on the

relationship between autobiographical memory and its corresponding social context, as well

as the efficacy of using music as a tool for neurocognitive stimulation of the cognitively

impaired.

21

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Appendix A

Results of the Normative Study

Table A1

Results of the Arousal and Decade from the Normative Study

Arousal Decade

M SD 95% - 95% + Hits

Grândola, Vila Morena - José Afonso 1970 N 3,63 1,15 3,45 3,80 .86

E Depois do Adeus - Paulo de Carvalho 1970 N 3,03 1,09 2,86 3,20 .48

O Corpo é que Paga - António Variações 1980 N 4,09 0,92 3,95 4,23 .47

A minha Casinha - Xutos e Pontapés 1980 N 4,25 0,88 4,11 4,28 .37

Pronúncia do Norte - GNR 1990 N 3,19 1,10 3,02 3,36 .63

Jardins Proibidos - Paulo Gonzo 1990 N 3,10 1,15 2,93 3,28 .61

Sopro do Coração - Clã 2000 N 3,04 1,05 2,88 3,20 .69

Carta - Tiago Bettencourt 2000 N 3,37 1,04 3,21 3,53 .82

O amor é mágico - Expensive Soul 2010 N 3,38 1,03 3,22 3,54 .58

Balada do Desajeitado - D.A.M.A. 2010 N 3,09 1,34 2,88 3,30 .90

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen 1970 I 4,04 1,08 3,87 4,20 .38

Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees 1970 I 4,02 0,94 3,88 4,17 .41

Flashdance...What a Feeling - Irene

Cara 1980 I 3,75 1,04 3,59 3,91 .61

Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams 1980 I 4,13 0,91 3,99 4,27 .55

I Believe I Can Fly - R. Kelly 1990 I 3,16 1,18 2,98 3,34 .66

I Don't Want to Miss a Thing -

Aerosmith 1990 I 3,78 1,03 3,63 3,94 .62

Beautiful - Christina Aguilera 2000 I 3,31 1,14 3,13 3,48 .70

Single Ladies - Beyoncé 2000 I 3,90 1,26 3,71 4,10 .52

Firework - Katy Perry 2010 I 3,79 1,23 3,60 3,98 .80

When I Was Your Man - Bruno Mars 2010 I 3,02 1,20 2,83 3,20 .83 N = National; I = International

Table A2

Results of the Affective Valence from the Normative Study

Valence

M SD 95% - 95% +

Grândola. Vila Morena - José Afonso 1970 N 4.11 1.11 3.94 4.29

E Depois do Adeus - Paulo de Carvalho 1970 N 3.34 1.13 3.17 3.52

O Corpo é que Paga - António Variações 1980 N 3.59 1.00 3.44 3.74

A minha Casinha - Xutos e Pontapés 1980 N 3.78 1.01 3.63 3.94

Pronúncia do Norte - GNR 1990 N 3.46 1.01 3.31 3.62

Jardins Proibidos - Paulo Gonzo 1990 N 3.45 1.16 3.27 3.63

Sopro do Coração - Clã 2000 N 3.05 0.98 2.90 3.20

Carta - Tiago Bettencourt 2000 N 3.73 0.96 3.58 3.88

O amor é mágico - Expensive Soul 2010 N 3.05 1.11 2.88 3.22

Balada do Desajeitado - D.A.M.A. 2010 N 3.36 1.32 3.16 3.56

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen 1970 I 3.80 1.17 3.62 3.97

Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees 1970 I 3.66 1.04 3.50 3.82

Flashdance...What a Feeling - Irene Cara 1980 I 3.41 1.07 3.25 3.57

Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams 1980 I 3.96 0.89 3.83 4.10

I Believe I Can Fly - R. Kelly 1990 I 3.51 1.15 3.34 3.69

I Don't Want to Miss a Thing - Aerosmith 1990 I 3.40 1.10 3.23 3.57

Beautiful - Christina Aguilera 2000 I 3.54 1.19 3.35 3.72

Single Ladies - Beyoncé 2000 I 3.24 1.30 3.04 3.44

Firework - Katy Perry 2010 I 3.40 1.26 3.20 3.59

When I Was Your Man - Bruno Mars 2010 I 3.02 1.30 2.82 3.22 N = National; I = International