Music can be a powerful tool for manipulating our emotions. When we watch a movie with a strong score, the music guides our feelings and experiences. A recent study by Ren, Brown, and colleagues at the University of Colorado, including former Georgia Tech Assistant Professor Grace Leslie, found that this “mood music” can even alter our memories.
In their study, 44 Georgia Tech students listened to film soundtracks while recalling a challenging memory. The researchers discovered that the music significantly influenced how the students remembered the event.
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“We wanted to start off with a random group of people and see if music has the power to modulate the emotional level of their memories,” said Yiren Rena sixth-year Ph.D. student in Georgia Tech’s School of Psychology and the study’s lead author.
“These studies are connected because they both explore innovative applications of music in memory modulation, offering insights for both every day and clinical use,” added Ren. “One paper looks at how music changes the quality of your memory when you’re first forming it — it’s about. But the other study focuses on memories we already have and asks if we can change the emotions attached to them using music.”
The participants not only listened to the music but also incorporated its emotional tone into their memories. The impact was long-lasting. Even a day later, when recalling the memories without music, the participants’ emotional responses still aligned with the music they had heard earlier.
Using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), the researchers observed these changes in the brain. They saw increased connectivity between the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center, and other regions involved in memory and information processing.
Ren is herself a multi-instrumentalist who originally planned on being a professional musician. As an undergraduate at Boston University, she pursued a dual major in film production and sound design, and psychology.
She found a way to combine her interests in music and neuroscience and is interested in how music therapy can be designed to help people with mood disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression, “particularly in cases where someone might overexaggerate the negative components of a memory,” Ren says.
“These early studies reveal that music can both help and hinder our memory, depending on its familiarity and structure,” Ren says. “I’m excited to bring together my lifelong love of music with my interest in human memory. Because I think the next phase of my research could provide valuable evidence to support the development of music-based interventions for mental health and cognitive function.”
