Summary: A new study reveals that different types of music shape the emotional tone of the memories they evoke. Acoustic, lower-energy songs often triggered personal memories filled with calmness, romance, and sadness, while energetic, less acoustic songs sparked memories of social fun, excitement, and amusement.
Memories linked to self-selected songs were especially vivid and personally meaningful compared to those tied to popular music excerpts. These findings expand knowledge of the music–memory connection and could aid reminiscence therapies for people with memory disorders.
Key Facts
- Acoustic Songs: Evoked calm, romantic, and vivid memories with complex emotions.
- Energetic Songs: Triggered social, exciting memories that were recalled faster.
- Personal Songs: Produced more unique, positive, and meaningful memories than popular tracks.
Source: PLOS
In a new study, high-energy, less acoustic songs evoked personal memories featuring amusement and excitement, while lower-energy, more acoustic songs evoked memories characterized by calmness, romance and sadness. Safiyyah Nawaz and Diana Omigie of Goldsmiths University of London, U.K., present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on August 20, 2025.
One might hear just a few seconds of a song and be transported back to a memory; perhaps a childhood birthday party or walking the dog in one’s old neighborhood. Prior research supports the potency of music in evoking vivid memories of one’s past, and autobiographical memories are known to help shape identity and self-development.
Few studies have explored whether specific auditory features of music, such as acousticness or low tempo, tend to evoke autobiographical memories with certain characteristics, such as a sad memory or a particularly vivid one.
To investigate, Nawaz and Omigie conducted an online survey study in which 233 participants answered questions about personal memories evoked by music: a self-selected piece alongside excerpts of popular songs from their childhood and early adulthood.
The researchers used statistical approaches called principal components analysis and linear mixed-effects modelling to determine whether any particular qualities of the songs were strongly associated with any particular qualities of the memories they evoked.
The researchers found that more acoustic, lower-energy songs (for instance, Debussy’s Clair de Lune) tended to evoke memories characterized by feelings of aesthetic appreciation, adoration, calmness, romance, and sadness.
Memories evoked by such songs were also reported to be less social and more vivid, unique, and important. Meanwhile, less acoustic, higher-energy songs (such as Fetty Wap’s Trap Queen) tended to evoke memories of amusement, excitement, and high energy. Memories evoked by such songs also tended to be recalled more quickly.
Compared to memories evoked by popular songs, those evoked by the self-selected songs tended to be more specific, vivid, positive, arousing, unique and important.
These findings deepen understanding of music-evoked autobiographical memories and could help inform such applications as reminiscence therapies for people with memory impairment conditions such as Alzheimer’s Disease.
Safiyyah Nawaz adds: “We all know of the experience of hearing a song and being transported back in time to a vivid memory associated with that song; as it turns out, the properties of the music itself – characteristics like acousticness, loudness and energy – relate to the emotional and phenomenological qualities of the same musical memories.
Among many interesting findings, we discovered that more acoustic songs were associated with memories that were more vivid, unique, and characterized by complex emotions like romance and adoration, whereas louder, more energetic songs were linked to social, exciting, high-energy memories that were recalled faster.”
“In this research project, we collected and analyzed over 1,400 musical memories, a process that was as humbling as it was thought-provoking. I saw how each song carries as many moments of life as there are listeners of that song, adding a new dimension to my personal understanding of music as something that is truly timeless.”
“Generated by the data and inspired by the research, we have begun building an online archive of musical memories at https://memoryrecords.xyz/. Some of the memories analyzed in this project—shared with the consent of participants—are available to read now, and we aim to expand the archive beyond the predominantly Western samples that have traditionally shaped psychology research.”
Diana Omigie adds: “Our in-depth analysis showed that it’s not just the musical features that influence memory, but also how much a person likes a song and how familiar it is to them.
“We hope future research will explore how musical elements interact with such personal elements to bring about the deep and meaningful memories that people experience in everyday life.”
About this music and memory research news
Author: Hanna Abdallah
Source: PLOS
Contact: Hanna Abdallah – PLOS
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Qualities of music-evoked autobiographical memories are associated with auditory features of the memory-evoking music” by Safiyyah Nawaz et al. PLOS ONE
Abstract
Qualities of music-evoked autobiographical memories are associated with auditory features of the memory-evoking music
Studies of music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) show that music is a potent cue for retrieving vivid and self-relevant memories.
However, whether and how musical features are able to predict the qualities of MEAMs – including their emotional qualities, phenomenological characteristics and retrieval efficiency – remains unclear.
In our study, a sample of 233 adult participants identified a piece of music that evoked an autobiographical memory (AM) before providing a written description of the memory, and then evaluating its emotional and phenomenological content.
Participants were then presented with excerpts of ten songs that were popular during their childhood and early adulthood and reported the same details for any AMs evoked. Features of all songs were extracted using the Spotify Web API and subjected to principal components analysis for dimension reduction.
This revealed a primary auditory feature component – characterised by low energeticness and high acousticness – that was found to predict several qualities of the memory.
Specifically, results showed that low energetic – high acoustic songs were associated with AMs characterised emotionally by aesthetic appreciation, adoration, calmness, romance and sadness, while high energetic – low acoustic songs were associated with AMs high in memory energeticness, amusement and excitement.
Phenomenologically, AMs associated with low energetic – high acoustic songs were described as less social, and more vivid, unique and important, and, in terms of retrieval efficacy, tended to be retrieved more slowly.
Our findings show for the first time the extent to which the qualities of MEAMs can be predicted by music’s stimulus features.
Further, by taking into account how the AMs were evoked, and subjective factors related to the memory-evoking music such as liking and familiarity, our study provides insights into possible mechanisms underlying music-assisted memory encoding and retrieval.
We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding the links between perception, emotion and memory processes, and make suggestions for future work that can advance this research area.
