How music, memory and emotion are connected, with Elizabeth Margulis, PhD

Speaking of Psychology

Kim Mills

Health & Fitness, Life Sciences, Science, Mental Health

4.3 • 781 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The right song can make us feel chills, help pull us out of a bad mood, or take us back in time to the first time we heard it. Elizabeth Margulis, PhD, director of the Music Cognition Lab at Princeton University, talks about how music, memory, emotion and imagination intertwine; why people are especially attached to music from their teen years; whether there’s any music that’s considered universally beautiful; why repetition is important in music; and why we so often get “earworms” stuck in our head. For transcripts, links and more information, please visit the Speaking of Psychology Homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Shopify.
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0:16.9	Sign up for a £1 per month trial period at shopify.com.org or lowercase. That's
0:23.3	Shopify.com.orgia slash special offer. Are there songs that take you back in time? Maybe that
0:30.5	summer anthem that played endlessly the year you were 16 or the first dance from your wedding or even an ad jingle
0:37.2	from childhood.
0:38.3	Whatever it is, hearing even a snippet of the right music can transport us back decades
0:43.3	and make us feel the emotions we felt back then.
0:46.3	Today we're going to talk about why that happens, and the many ways that music, memory, emotion, and imagination intertwine. So why do some songs make us
0:55.8	happy or sad? Why do some give us chills and others make us want to dance? Why do some pieces of
1:01.5	music transport us back in time? Is there a reason that people are especially attached to music
1:06.3	from their teenage years? How do our culture and our expectations
1:11.2	affect the way we experience music?
1:13.4	And finally, why are we so drawn to some songs
1:15.7	that we want to listen to them over and over again?
1:17.8	Yet, when other songs get stuck in our heads,
1:20.5	we call them earworms and they drive us slightly crazy.
1:25.4	Welcome to Speaking of Psychology,
1:27.3	the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association
	...

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