When Melodies Cue Memories: Electrophysiological Correlates of Autobiographically Salient Music Listening in Older Adults

Autobiographical memory is essential for older adults, providing a foundation for self-identity. Although healthy aging is accompanied by changes in memory retrieval, musical memory remains relatively unaffected, suggesting music may serve as a cue for autobiographical memory recall. Autobiographically salient (ABS) music (i.e., deeply encoded songs associated with significant people, places, and events) is posited to engage distinct memory processes from familiar (FAM) music (i.e., songs that are recognized but lack personal significance). We tested this in 36 older adults (70.6 <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mo>±</mml:mo></mml:math> 6.6 years, 20 females) who listened to music varying by personal significance, including ABS, FAM, and unfamiliar (UFAM) music. In Experiment 1, participants pressed a button as soon as they identified the excerpt as ABS, FAM, or UFAM. In Experiment 2, we measured event-related potentials and time-frequency responses while participants listened to the same stimuli and rated familiarity and memory following each excerpt. Reaction times were fastest for ABS, followed by FAM, then UFAM music. We observed a sustained evoked response from 2238 to 5000 ms post-stimulus onset that was least negative in amplitude for ABS, relative to FAM and UFAM music, over right frontal-central regions. We also observed less beta power suppression for ABS than FAM music between 1300 and 5000 ms over bilateral frontal-central-parietal areas. Our behavioral and neurophysiological findings show that ABS music elicits faster and distinct memory-related neural activity throughout the excerpts compared to FAM music. These results emphasize that music is a powerful cue for activating memory processes, which varies by personal significance.