Exploring episodic recollection: the neural correlates of music-evoked autobiographical memories

Driving one's car and listening to music on the radio can trigger memories of self at different periods and places. Music can trigger re-experiencing of the past, and this is a Music-Evoked Autobiographical Memory, or a MEAM (Janata, Tomic, & Rakowski, 2007). Much is unknown about the widespread effect of episodic recollection on neuronal populations when music is a retrieval cue. Experimenters asked participants to self-select emotional music: one song in happiness and another in sadness (Talarico, LaBar, & Rubin, 2004). EEG was recorded, at Fz, F3, F4, P3, and P4, while participants listened to music and as participants relived MEAMs. Fourty-four of 49 participants had reported experiencing MEAMs, and EEG asymmetries were investigated in delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma power bands. For sufficient emotional arousal, experimenters ensured a 45 s music induction period per song (Krumhansl, 1997; Sammler, Grigutsch, Fritz, & Koelsch, 2007) and targeted felt emotion—versus perceived emotion—when asking participants to select songs. Face valid familiar and emotionally arousing music may have different neural correlates than novel music and may activate memory-related psychological mechanisms. Asymmetries found in this experiment can add to theory about underlying neural substrates activated during episodic recollection and provide development of affective musical retrieval cues to aid memory for clinical populations.