The Psychology of Music and Nostalgia

HOW MUSIC CAN TELEPORT YOUR MIND—

Raindrops pattered on my windshield as I drove my roommate and me home from a Target run on a stormy day in early December. He was on aux, playing slow, rainy day classics: “Sweater Weather” by the Neighborhood, Lana Del Rey’s “West Coast,” and “The Blonde” by TV Girl. After the final melancholy song ended, the upbeat intro to “Everybody Talks” by Neon Trees began to play - a song that I was sure I hadn’t heard for at least ten years. Suddenly, like magic, I was eight years old again, dancing to the same song with my sister and our two neighbors, our best friends at the time. We were performing for our parents in a bid for a sleepover. I began to reflect on my friendship with those two girls from next door and our memories of growing up together. 

Images of neighborhood pool parties, kickball in the street, and making friendship bracelets filled my mind. As the song ended, I snapped back to reality. I was no longer eight years old, but a sophomore in college again, far from the friends and hometown I left over a year ago. Despite this, I felt a deep connection to those memories and the music's role in triggering them. When I got home, I texted my old neighbors, and we FaceTimed for two hours. The experience made me reflect on the powerful nature of music and how it triggered this sudden nostalgia in my brain, ultimately allowing me to reconnect with loved ones. I dove deeper into these findings to uncover the role of psychology and nostalgia in music, our emotional associations with songs, and how music helps us maintain connections with those we love. 

Understanding our neurological functions is essential to understanding music's effects on the brain. The limbic system, which plays a significant role in regulating emotions and memories, is crucial in processing auditory stimuli like music. It contains the amygdala and hippocampus, two groups of neurons located in the brain's temporal lobes. The amygdala regulates emotions, while the hippocampus stores memories. When music is played, it stimulates both; the amygdala processes the emotions tied to the music, and the hippocampus links those emotions with specific memories. This interaction helps explain why certain songs can evoke strong emotions or trigger past memories. Additionally, our long-term memories, which are stored in the hippocampus, are divided into two distinctive types: explicit and implicit. 

Explicit memories are conscious, voluntary recollections of the past, such as study material from flashcards and lecture notes. If not used or triggered regularly, these memories can fade. Implicit memories, on the other hand, are unconscious and involuntary, triggered by things like familiar songs or routine actions - recalling the lyrics to a song after hearing just a few notes, for instance. These memories are often tied to emotional events, and when linked to music, they can bring back vivid emotions and memories from the past. Due to our implicit memories, our brains can associate certain styles of music with specific emotions. For example, our brain automatically links minor chords to sad songs and major chords to happy songs. This also explains why we associate certain songs with emotions like happiness and sadness. Music also triggers a dopamine release in the brain, a powerful neurotransmitter part of the brain's reward system. When we listen to music associated with happy memories, dopamine is released, and a sense of joy is ‘recruited’ to the listener, triggering nostalgia and a reminder of those happy memories. 

Music not only triggers memories and emotions in our brains but also helps create emotional connections between people. When we hear a nostalgic song, it brings to mind not just the setting, but also the people we were with when we experienced that memory. Shared experiences can bond people for life, and music serves as an audible time capsule in our brain, creating emotional bridges between people regardless of time. This is how people can create emotional bonds through shared songs. For example, an elderly married couple might hear a song from their wedding night, and instantly be transported to that moment. The song symbolizes their connection, reminding them of their shared experiences and reinforcing their love for one another. Music can even act as a communication method. Since music is tied to so many memories and emotions, it often becomes a way to express feelings when words fall short. People may turn to music to articulate their emotions, such as dedicating a song to someone to show their love. Here, music becomes its own language, as a song's lyrics, timbre, or rhythm can capture feelings that might otherwise be difficult to communicate, further supporting the idea that music can connect people in a way like no other. 

In many ways, music is the soundtrack of our lives, intertwining with our most significant life moments while creating long-lasting memories. Because emotions enhance memory processes, and music evokes emotions, music plays a vital role in marking key life events. Whether it's graduations, weddings, or breakups, the music played during these highly emotional moments becomes tied to the memories of the experience. Additionally, music can powerfully intertwine with memories because it is so easy to return to. We can play a song again and again until it becomes familiar. This has to do with familiarity bias; the tendency for people to prefer or favor things that are familiar to them. Our brains associate songs we hear repeatedly with well-known places, people, or experiences, strengthening our emotional connection with those moments. The more often a song is linked to a particular event or person, the deeper the emotional resonance. Music's ability to subconsciously trigger memories in the brain has even been used to help individuals who suffer from neurodegenerative disorders that cause a decline in memory, such as Alzheimer's disease. 

Additionally, music nostalgia is associated with shared cultural experiences from specific periods. For example, disco music was popular in the 1970s, and grunge rose to prominence in the 1990s. If people who grew up in these eras were to hear this music now, they would likely be hit with various memories they created while listening to it growing up. This allows music to unite not only loved ones but also generations. 

Music's ability to trigger specific memories and community connections is rooted in the brain's complex processing systems between sound, emotion, and memory. The music we associate with loved ones and significant experiences holds a special place in our lives, and it is through music that we can easily connect with people who are important to us, no matter how much time has passed. So the next time you are experiencing a moment you know you will miss, and a song is playing in the background, pay attention to the song playing in the background - you might just be able to revisit that moment later on. 

Sources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/202109/why-does-music-evoke-memo ries 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0305969#:~:text=Memory%20f or%20music%20in%20older%20adults&text=Instead%2C%20familiarity%20and%20well%2Dfor medness,along%20with%20recollection%20%5B49%5D. 

https://www.yellowbrick.co/blog/music/unlocking-emotions-the-relationship-between-music-and nostalgia#:~:text=Music%20has%20a%20unique%20ability%20to%20evoke%20powerful%20e motions%20and,sense%20of%20joy%20and%20nostalgia. 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2776393/#:~:text=Because%20emotions%20enhance %20memory%20processes,of%20emotion%20in%20musical%20memory.