Comparing music‐ and food‐evoked autobiographical memories in young and older adults: A diary study
View/ Open
Author
Jakubowski, Kelly
Belfi, Amy M.
Kvavilashvili, Lia
Ely, Abbigail
Gill, Mark
Herbert, Gemma
Attention
2299/26061
Abstract
Previous research has found that music brings back more vivid and emotional autobiographical memories than various other retrieval cues. However, such studies have often been low in ecological validity and constrained by relatively limited cue selection and predominantly young adult samples. Here, we compared music to food as cues for autobiographical memories in everyday life in young and older adults. In two separate four‐day periods, 39 younger (ages 18–34) and 39 older (ages 60–77) adults recorded their music‐ and food‐evoked autobiographical memories in paper diaries. Across both age groups, music triggered more frequent autobiographical memories, a greater proportion of involuntary memories, and memories rated as more personally important in comparison to food cues. Age differences impacted music‐ and food‐evoked memories similarly, with older adults consistently recalling older and less specific memories, which they rated as more positive, vivid, and rehearsed. However, young and older adults did not differ in the number or involuntary nature of their recorded memories. This work represents an important step in understanding the phenomenology of naturally occurring music‐evoked autobiographical memories across adulthood and provides new insights into how and why music may be a more effective trigger for personally valued memories than certain other everyday cues.
Publication date
2023-07-19Published in
British Journal of PsychologyPublished version
https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12639Other links
http://hdl.handle.net/2299/26061Metadata
Show full item recordRelated items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Autobiographical memory and depression : an investigation of over general memory processing on recall tasks
Akande, Rachel Sarah (University of Hertfordshire, 2004)Depression is a prevalent diagnosis within psychiatric populations. People with depression have been shown to recall over general autobiographical memories. The current study uses a cognitive stage model of memory to ... -
Memristor-based random access memory: The delayed switching effect could revolutionize memory design
Wang, Frank; Chua, Leon O.; Helian, Na (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2016-04-25)Memristor’s on/off resistance can naturally store binary bits for non-volatile memories. In this work, we found that memristor’s another peculiar feature that the switching takes place with a time delay (we name it “the ... -
Everyday memory errors in Parkinson’s Disease : A study of prospective and retrospective memory errors using diaries, questionnaires and laboratory methods
Laughland, Andrew; Kvavilashvili, Lia (2014-05)The cognitive impairments that accompany Parkinson’s disease (PD) are currently under-researched, perhaps due to the more overt physical impairments associated with the illness. However, some studies have provided evidence ...