Music and emotionality: effects of music on mood and verbal memory

Abstract

Emotional stimuli are better remembered than neutral stimuli. Music, as an emotional stimulus, modulates memory; it
can change the mood and improves memory of material congruent with it (congruence hypothesis).
The aim of this work is to study the effect of activating and relaxing music on emotional verbal memory in young adults,
and to analyze the effect of mood congruence on the type of material remembered. 33 adults listened to a list of positive, negative and neutral words. Activating and relaxing positive music, or white noise, was used as a post-learning treatment. Mood was measured. We performed an immediate recall task. The results indicated better recall of total and negative words in free recall in subjects exposed to activating music. The activating and relaxing music generated a decrease in anxiety, while the control condition generated an increase in hostility. These results support the idea that music can be used as a treatment to modulate verbal memories, although no effect of congruence with mood was found.