Music-Evoked Emotions and Nostalgia

Presenter Information

Crystal Pelkey

Document Type

Oral Presentation

Campus where you would like to present

Des Moines

Start Date

17-5-2012

Abstract

Music is a powerful tool that can be used to evoke emotions and salient autobiographical memories. A common emotion brought about by listening to meaningful music is nostalgia. Nostalgia can be defined as a sentimental longing for the past and is usually a positive emotion that brings pleasure to those who experience it. Twenty undergraduate students participated in this study; it was hypothesized that those who heard the songs would feel more nostalgia than those who read lyrics to the same songs. Participants were exposed to songs by either hearing them as music or reading lyrics. The participants were asked to rate how nostalgic each song made them feel and how many memories they associated with each song. There were some songs that provided statistically significant results between the hearing songs and reading lyrics groups, however this was not the case for all of the songs. When the data was grouped for all of the participants, the average nostalgia rating was significantly higher for the group who heard the songs.

Poster Number

2

Faculty Mentor(s)

Danielle Polage

Additional Mentoring Department

Psychology

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May 17th, 12:00 PM

Music-Evoked Emotions and Nostalgia

Des Moines

Music is a powerful tool that can be used to evoke emotions and salient autobiographical memories. A common emotion brought about by listening to meaningful music is nostalgia. Nostalgia can be defined as a sentimental longing for the past and is usually a positive emotion that brings pleasure to those who experience it. Twenty undergraduate students participated in this study; it was hypothesized that those who heard the songs would feel more nostalgia than those who read lyrics to the same songs. Participants were exposed to songs by either hearing them as music or reading lyrics. The participants were asked to rate how nostalgic each song made them feel and how many memories they associated with each song. There were some songs that provided statistically significant results between the hearing songs and reading lyrics groups, however this was not the case for all of the songs. When the data was grouped for all of the participants, the average nostalgia rating was significantly higher for the group who heard the songs.