Music is a powerful tool for accessing information about ourselves. Two recent studies are offering new insight into how our favorite songs are linked to our memories and our personalities — and how those connections can improve our lives.
Listening to a favorite, familiar or “reminiscent” song can instantly transport you to another time in your life, bringing back details with surprising clarity. And it’s not just a fanciful feeling — there’s science behind how our minds connect music with memory.
There has long been a beneficial association between music and patients with Alzheimer’s or dementia.
Repeatedly listening to music that is personally meaningful has been found to improve brain adaptability in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment.
Listening to music with special meaning stimulated neural pathways in the brain that helped them maintain higher levels of functioning, according to Michael Thaut, senior author of a study by researchers at the University of Toronto. It was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in November.
These songs had a unique meaning, like the song people danced to at their wedding, and led to an increase in memory performance in tests. The findings may support the inclusion of music-based therapy in the treatment of patients with cognitive impairment in the future.
The changes were most notable in the prefrontal cortex, known as the brain’s control center, where decision-making, moderating social behavior, personality expression, and planning complex mental behavior take place.
When patients heard music that was personal to them, it triggered a musical neural network connecting different regions of the brain, based on MRI scans taken of patients before and after listening to the music. This differed from when they were listening to new, unfamiliar music, which only triggered a specific part of the brain tuned in to hear.
There were only 14 participants in the study, including six musicians, and they listened to specially selected playlists for one hour a day for three weeks. But these participants are the same as in a previous study that identified the neural mechanisms for preserving music-related memories in those experiencing early cognitive decline.
“Whether you’re a longtime musician or you’ve never played an instrument, music is a key to your memory, your prefrontal cortex,” said Thaut, who is director of the Music and Health Science Research Collaboratory at the University of Toronto. and professor at the Faculty of Music and Faculty of Medicine Temerty, in a statement.
He also holds the Tier One Canada Research Chair in Music, Neuroscience and Health. “It’s simple — keep listening to the music you’ve loved all your life. Your all-time favorite songs, those pieces that are especially meaningful to you — make it your brain exercise.”
The research is a promising start that could lead to music therapy applications with a broader purpose.
It also highlights another connection: music and our personalities.
like-minded music fans
Music is related to our desire to communicate, tell stories and share values with one another, and it has deep roots in early human cultures.
So, perhaps it’s no surprise that as humans we forge connections and bonds with certain genres or musical styles as a way of expressing ourselves and conveying our personalities.
A recent study spanning six continents with more than 350,000 participants showed that personality types are linked to certain musical preferences.
During the study, people from over 50 countries reported their liking for 23 different music genres while also completing a personality questionnaire.
A second assessment also had participants listen to brief music clips from 16 different genres and subgenres of Western music and rate them. The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in February.
The music fell into five main style categories. “Mellow” is associated with soft rock, R&B and adult contemporary music, including romantic lyrics and slow beats, while “intense” is louder and more aggressive music such as punk, classic rock, heavy metal and power pop.
The other categories included “contemporary” (upbeat electronics, rap, Latin and Euro-pop), “sophisticated” (classical, opera, jazz), and “unpretentious” (relaxing or country music genres).
The findings revealed direct links between extroverts and contemporary music, conscientiousness and unpretentious music, friendliness and soft or unassuming music. The opening was linked to soft, intense, sophisticated and contemporary music.
That means songs like Ed Sheeran’s “Shivers” appeal to extroverts, while nice people would be happy listening to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”
Meanwhile, open people tend to like Nina Simone or David Bowie’s classic “Space Oddity”. And all of these types of music have appeals that cross national borders, according to the study.
“We were surprised at how much these patterns between music and personality have replicated around the world,” study author David Greenberg, an honorary research associate at the University of Cambridge and a postdoctoral fellow at Bar-Ilan University, said in a statement.
“People can be divided by geography, language and culture, but if an introvert in one part of the world likes the same music as introverts in another, that suggests that music can be a very powerful bridge. Music helps people understand each other and find common ground.”
These were all positive associations, but they also found a negative connection between awareness and intense music.
“We think neuroticism would likely have gone one of two ways, preferring sad music to express their loneliness or preferring upbeat music to change their mood. In fact, on average, they seem to prefer more intense musical styles, which perhaps reflects inner anguish and frustration,” said Greenberg.
“That was surprising, but people use music in different ways — some can use it to purify their spirit, others to change their mood. Let’s look at this in more detail.”
The researchers recognize that musical taste is not immutable and can change. But the study provides a foundation for understanding how music can cut across other social divides and bring people together, Greenberg said.
Source: CNN Brasil
