Long-term memory
How does the brain remember and recognize emotional music?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
While the brain uses frontal and temporal regions to recognize positive music, a low overall memory rate in this study prevented researchers from proving that positive music is easier to remember than neutral music.
Key findings
The behavioral data showed no significant difference in memory accuracy between the positive and neutral music, likely because the overall recognition rate was very low. However, brain imaging revealed that successfully recognizing positive music compared to neutral music triggered activation in specific areas including the left prefrontal cortex, temporal pole, and posterior cingulate cortex. General music recognition was associated with increased activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus.
Methodology
Researchers scanned the brains of 18 participants using functional MRI while they performed a music recognition task. During an initial phase, participants listened to and rated 30 short, highly arousing musical clips that were either neutral or very positive. On the next day, they completed a memory test inside the scanner, trying to identify those 30 familiar clips mixed with 30 completely new ones.
Limitations
This study cannot rule out whether the loud background noise of the MRI scanner disrupted participants' concentration and muted their emotional responses. Because the overall recognition rate was extremely low, the findings fail to show a clear behavioral link between positive emotions and better musical memory. Additionally, using very short clips of only 10 s length may not have provided enough time to elicit the deep emotional states normally associated with music.
How this study connects
Role on claims
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Successfully recognizing positive musical stimuli triggers unique neural activation in the left prefrontal cortex, temporal pole, and posterior cingulate cortex, even when behavioral memory differences are not detected.
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