Involuntary and voluntary recall of musical memories: A comparison of temporal accuracy and emotional responses

Exploring the accuracy of musical tempo memory: The effects of reproduction method, reference tempo, and musical expertise

Although people commonly remember and recreate the tempo of musical pieces with high accuracy, comparatively less is known regarding sources of potential variation in musical tempo memory. This study therefore aimed to investigate musical tempo memory accuracy and the effects of reference tempo, reproduction method, musical expertise, and their interaction. A sample of 403 individuals with varying levels of musical training participated in the experimental online study, including nonmusicians, amateur musicians, and professional musicians. Participants were tasked with reproducing the tempos of 19 popular pop/rock songs using two methods: tempo tapping and adjusting the tempo of the audio file based on the previously tapped tempo. Results from multilevel models revealed overall high accuracy in tempo memory, with tempo adjusting yielding greater accuracy compared with tempo tapping. Higher musical expertise was associated with increased accuracy in tempo production. In addition, we observed a quadratic effect of reference tempo, with the greatest accuracy in tempo reproduction around 120 bpm. Gender, age, familiarity with the pieces, and accompaniment strategies were also associated with greater accuracy. These findings provide insights into the factors influencing musical tempo memory and have implications for understanding the cognitive processes involved in tempo perception and reproduction.

Effects of familiar music exposure on deliberate retrieval of remote episodic and semantic memories in healthy aging adults

Familiar music facilitates memory retrieval in adults with dementia. However, mechanisms behind this effect, and its generality, are unclear because of a lack of parallel work in healthy aging. Exposure to familiar music enhances spontaneous recall of memories directly cued by the music, but it is unknown whether such effects extend to deliberate recall more generally - e.g., to memories not directly linked to the music being played. It is also unclear whether familiar music boosts recall of specific episodes versus more generalised semantic memories, or whether effects are driven by domain-general mechanisms (e.g., improved mood). In a registered report study, we examined effects of familiar music on deliberate recall in healthy adults ages 65-80 years (N = 75) by presenting familiar music from earlier in life, unfamiliar music, and non-musical audio clips across three sessions. After each clip, we assessed free recall of remote memories for pre-selected events. Contrary to our hypotheses, we found no effects of music exposure on recall of prompted events, though familiar music evoked spontaneous memories most often. These results suggest that effects of familiar music on recall may be limited to memories specifically evoked in response to the music (Preprint and registered report protocol at https://osf.io/kjnwd/).

Accuracy of Tempo Judgments in Disk Jockeys Compared to Musicians and Untrained Individuals

Professional disk jockeys (DJs) are an under-studied population whose performance involves creating new musical experiences by combining existing musical materials with a high level of temporal precision. In contemporary electronic dance music, these materials have a stable tempo and are composed with the expectation for further transformation during performance by a DJ for the audience of dancers. Thus, a fundamental aspect of DJ performance is synchronizing the tempo and phase of multiple pieces of music, so that over seconds or even minutes, they may be layered and transitioned without disrupting the rhythmic pulse. This has been accomplished traditionally by manipulating the speed of individual music pieces “by ear,” without additional technological synchronization aids. However, the cumulative effect of this repeated practice on auditory tempo perception has not yet been evaluated. Well-known phenomena of experience-dependent plasticity in other populations, such as musicians, prompts the question of whether such effects exist in DJs in their domain of expertise. This pilot study examined auditory judgments of tempo in 10 professional DJs with experience mixing by ear, compared to 7 percussionists, 12 melodic instrumental musicians, and 11 untrained controls. Participants heard metronome sequences between 80 and 160 beats per minute (BPM) and estimated the tempo. In their most-trained tempo range, 120–139 BPM, DJs were more accurate (lower absolute percent error) than untrained participants. Within the DJ group, 120–139 BPM exhibited greater accuracy than slower tempos of 80–99 or 100–119 BPM. DJs did not differ in accuracy compared to percussionists or melodic musicians on any BPM range. Percussionists were more accurate than controls for 100–119 and 120–139 BPM. The results affirm the experience-dependent skill of professional DJs in temporal perception, with comparable performance to conventionally trained percussionists and instrumental musicians. Additionally, the pattern of results suggests a tempo-specific aspect to this training effect that may be more pronounced in DJs than percussionists and musicians. As one of the first demonstrations of enhanced auditory perception in this unorthodox music expert population, this work opens the way to testing whether DJs also have enhanced rhythmic production abilities, and investigating the neural substrates of this skill compared to conventional musicians.

Involuntary musical imagery as a component of ordinary music cognition: A review of empirical evidence

Involuntary musical imagery (INMI) refers to a conscious mental experience of music that occurs without deliberate efforts to initiate or sustain it. This experience often consists of the repetition of a short fragment of a melody, colloquially called an "earworm." Here, we present the first comprehensive, qualitative review of published empirical research on INMI to date. We performed an extensive literature search and discovered, in total, 47 studies from 33 peer-reviewed articles that met the inclusion criteria for the review. In analyzing the content of these studies, we identified four major research themes, which concern the phenomenology, dynamics, individual differences, and musical features of INMI. The findings answer many questions of scientific interest-for instance, what is typical in terms of INMI frequency, duration, and content; which factors influence INMI onset; and whether demographic and personality factors can explain individual differences in susceptibility and responses to INMI. This review showcases INMI as a well-established phenomenon in light of a substantial body of empirical studies that have accumulated consistent results. Although the populations under study show an unfavorable bias towards Western, educated participants, the evidence depicts INMI as a universal psychological phenomenon, the possible function of which we do not yet fully understand. The concluding section introduces several suggestions for future research to expand on the topic.

Mental Control in Musical Imagery: A Dual Component Model

Hearing music in your head is a ubiquitous experience, but the role mental control plays in these experiences has not been deeply addressed. In this conceptual analysis, a dual-component model of mental control in musical imagery experiences is developed and discussed. The first component, initiation, refers to whether the musical imagery experience began voluntarily or involuntarily. The second component, management, refers to instances of control that occur after the experience has begun (e.g., changing the song, stopping the experience). Given the complex nature of this inner experience, we propose a new model combining and integrating four literatures: lab-based auditory imagery research using musical stimuli; involuntary musical imagery; mental rehearsal and composition in musicians; and in vivo studies of musical imagery in everyday environments. These literatures support the contention that mental control of musical imagery is multi-faceted. Future research should investigate these two components of mental control and better integrate the diverse literatures on musical imagery.