Ongoing History Daily: How music manipulates our memories, part 1
For some evolutionary and biological reason, parts of our brains are hardwired for music. And the memories created by music are extremely powerful.
Music creates what’s known as “flashbulb memories,” instances that preserve where you were and how you were feeling when you heard a specific song. Those mental images and feelings are triggered every time you hear that song.
Lyrics also find a way into our long-term memories because melody acts as an additional way to retrieve information from deep in our brain. It’s why we can remember the words to a song immediately, even though we haven’t heard it for years.
And music also messes with our perception of time. We all have internal clocks that certain songs will speed up or slow down, thereby adding more power to the memory. More next time.
