Like many people, I can think of songs that instantly transport me back in time. A few familiar notes can bring back a memory of a birthday party or a family member. While working in brain injury rehabilitation, I watched this memory phenomenon happen for other people.
Clients, including older adults, who struggled to recall experiences from the past few days could suddenly become animated when a favourite song prompted memories from earlier periods of their lives. These moments left me wondering what makes music such a powerful cue for memories of events from one’s own life. That question led me to read a 2017 paper by Rathbone, O’Connor and Moulin.
Rathbone and colleagues asked why people tend to recall more memories from adolescence and early adulthood than from other periods of life, a pattern known as the reminiscence bump. They found that songs that healthy participants considered personally significant (important or meaningful to them) were most often encountered during adolescence and early adulthood and were also more likely to bring back specific memories of past events, whereas songs that were merely familiar but not personally significant did not show the same pattern. By contrast, personally significant films were not necessarily first encountered during adolescence and early adulthood, which suggests that the relationship between personal significance and the reminiscence bump might be stronger for songs than for films.
The authors suggest this pattern might reflect differences in how music and films are encountered: songs are repeatedly heard in everyday contexts, whereas films are typically encountered less frequently and less repeatedly. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout Rathbone, C. The tracks of my years: personal significance contributes to the reminiscence bump.
Cogn. 45, 137–150 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-016-0647-2 (2017) Centre for Psychological Research, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK The author declares no competing interests. When music becomes personally significant. Nat Rev Psychol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-026-00631-5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-026-00631-5
Extract — continue reading at the source.
