If you’ve ever heard a song and been instantly transported back to your senior prom or your first concert, then you know music holds memories.
But you might not know that music can also alter the way you feel about those memories. New research suggests that not only can music trigger memories, it can also change what you remember.
University of Colorado Boulder and the Georgia Institute of Technology researchers conducted a three-day experiment to determine how music, emotion, and memory interact.
On the first day, participants memorized short, emotionally neutral stories. The second day, they were asked to recall the stories while listening to positive music, negative music, or none at all. The researchers also measured the participants’ brain activity using scans that detect changes in blood flow.
On the last day, participants were asked to recall the stories again without music.
The researchers found that when participants listened to emotionally charged or negative music while recalling neutral stories, they were more likely to add emotional elements to the story. When they listened to positive music, they remembered the stories more positively.
The experiment also showed that while participants listened to music, there was increased activity in the parts of their brains that control emotional memory processing.
The researchers say their findings could someday be used for therapeutic purposes, helping people handle difficult memories by reframing them.
For those with post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, musical therapy could help make the past less painful so the present can be more rewarding.