WEBVTT - Music and Memory 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.760 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:18.239 My name is Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick. As we've 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:21.720 discussed on the show before, memory is a complex topic. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:24.160 There are things we remember, there are things we forget, 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.159 There are the things we only think we've forgotten, and 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:29.960 then there are the numerous ways in which altered memories 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.159 are stored and then retrieved as if they're fact. Memory 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.959 is powerful, it's beautiful, it's dangerous at times, and it's 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:41.120 essential to human culture and the human experience. In this episode, 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:43.040 we're gonna be looking at some of the issues related 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.440 to memory and music because the way we think about, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:50.600 store and recall music. I feel like this helps illuminate 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.280 what's going on in the complexity of memory. And it's 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.040 also something that's that's that's highly relatable. We can we 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.480 can all dip in on the this particular topic, and 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:03.720 I look forward to hearing from listeners about it. But 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.800 also we're dealing with something that's you know, slightly intangible. 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.360 You know, you try and when you try and think 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:14.440 and talk about how you remember music, how songs stick 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:18.880 with you over the ages, and what songs mean to you. Uh, 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:20.040 you know, you know, you get into a lot of 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:22.640 interesting territory. Sure. I mean, I think one of the 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.319 most common things that we can all relate to is 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:29.840 the way that music has, uh such a powerful ability 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:34.040 to evoke by gone places and times that you know, 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:36.360 to to just sort of like put you right back 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.640 in the mindset of you know, that summer, the year 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.840 that you were nineteen years old or whatever. Um. And 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.440 it's kind of strange why sequences of sounds do that 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:51.960 seemingly so much more than almost any other, uh stimulus 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.040 of any kind. Yeah, yeah, they you know, there's a 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:59.520 lot of nostalgia tied up in music, and uh, you know, 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.920 I I thought I might share a personal example of 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.320 of how I sometimes feel like I'm haunted by music. 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:07.360 Sharing this because I think it's a good example for 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.920 our discussion, but also, deep down, I have this secret 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.960 hope that somebody will will help me identify this or 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:15.799 send me a maybe just you know, send me a 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:19.880 VHS tape that will answer my question. Uh. And I 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.920 imagine people out there have had similar, many similar experiences. 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.520 So as a child home one summer and watching lots 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:30.560 of daytime television. I saw a commercial for a community 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.360 college or state college. I'm not sure which, but it 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.480 I seem to recall it was probably a regional advertisement. 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.040 This might have been for it might have been a 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:42.880 college in Tennessee, or it might have been a college 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.279 in Kentucky. I'm not sure which, but it contained various 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:51.840 splashes of technology and humanities classes. It showed footage of people, 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:55.160 you know, tinkering with some electronic equipment, uh, you know, 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.320 doing some other stuff that looked vocational. And it also 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:02.399 contained uh, footage of the stage performance featuring what I 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.960 think was a Cyclops, like a large scale Cyclops costume 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.560 that towered over people. It might have been a minotaur, 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.040 but I think it was a Cyclops. You can respect 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.519 their advertising department saying, okay, we got a bunch of 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.519 footage of the stage productions. What what what goes front 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.600 and center in the commercial? It's got to be the monster? Yeah, yeah, 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.360 I mean it made an impression on my mind. But 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.840 what also made an impression was the music in this commercial, 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:28.919 because at the at the time and as I look 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:31.320 back on it, it felt like the music of the future. 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:35.840 It was some sort of glistening retro sounding synth and 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.360 I've never been able to find out exactly what it was. 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.680 I've I've never found like footage uploaded on YouTube of 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:46.480 this particular advertisement, and as far as I know that, 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:48.560 the commercials just lost to history. And again it was 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:53.720 likely very regional. But listening to Boards of Canada, the 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:59.200 musical duo years later whose specializes and often very nostalgic, 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.800 founding sounding retro synthies tracks, um, I did listen to 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:08.040 a track titled M nine off of Old Tunes Volume one, 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:12.000 and it either it reminds me a lot of what 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:14.880 was the of the song that was in this advertisement. 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.479 It reminds me so much that I'm tempted to wonder 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.800 if this was the track somehow. This is funny because 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.440 to me, the Boards of Canada very much is the 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:27.760 sound of like an a trium in a in an 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.960 institutional building on a college campus that has like sort 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.560 of futuristic looking staircases exagging around and like an orange 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.520 carpet or something exactly. That's I mean, that's the complicating thing, right. 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:43.359 The kind of sounds that the Boards of Canada excels 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:47.359 at crafting are are sounds that are reaching back towards 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.839 the time period, like they're they're they're kind of reverse 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.720 engineering the sort of sounds I would have heard in 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.880 this advertisement. And I'm not sure exactly when I would 0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:59.760 have listened to this advertisement. The tape in question, Old 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:03.479 tun Tunes Volume one, came out, and I think, but 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.560 I'm yeah, I'm not sure how the timelines add up here, 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.200 And if they do add up, I'm not sure exactly 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:13.040 how that track would have wound up on this commercial. 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.080 And like I say, in Tennessee or Kentucky or something, 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:19.920 um and and again, I'll likely never have the answer 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:21.960 to it. But every time I listen to that track 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.919 M nine, it takes me back to that experience of 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:29.800 watching this this advertisement and sort of glimpsing into this 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:33.080 possibility of what the future was like, what college might 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.240 be like, what adulthood might be like, what you know, 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.120 a life of technology or art, what that might consist of. 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:42.560 I think it's interesting. I don't know if you're even 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.400 aware you said this, but that your vision of the 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:51.600 future necessarily includes consciously retro elements, like retro sounding synth. 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:54.560 Is what you what you think of when you think 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:58.120 of the future. Yeah, it's it's weird. Yeah, And and 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.479 and I'm still kind of tied to this where I 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:04.640 see like there's certain building styles which are no longer modern, 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.159 that are very much retro, but they still look like 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.320 the future to me because they looked like in many cases, 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:14.120 they look like you know these strange, you know, collegiate 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.680 buildings that I saw when I was a child, you know, 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:18.240 some of these buildings that were probably built in the 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.320 nineteen seventies that we're you know, super reliant on air 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:25.440 conditioning and maybe didn't have as much natural life. Like 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.360 the atrium and overdrawn at the Memory Bank, and it's 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.160 both it is both of the past and of the future. 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:35.760 Yeah that that I forget which atrium was used in 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.880 that movie, but they made great use of an atrium there. Uh, 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.320 there are various other sci fi films. I love it 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.400 when it's clear that they're filming inside of a hotel 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:46.440 or a mall and making him look like some sort 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:50.800 of like a futuristic building. Absolutely love it. And to 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:53.440 that extent, I love just being in a large atrium. 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:55.800 There is that. I mean, these are like cathedrals, they're 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.320 just the god at the center of it is just 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.440 the hotel chain. They give you a brutal hanker in 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:06.160 for some cinemas. Sorry, the overdrawn of the memory bank 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.680 jokes can can stop right now. Well, you know everything 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:11.600 that I've talked about so far, We've been talking about 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.040 the boards of Canada. We've been talking about music that 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.720 had that is that is completely um instrumental, it has 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:21.000 no lyrics because once you start talking about lyrics, Uh, this, 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:24.360 this adds an entirely different dimension to everything. Yeah, So 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.760 this is something that I wanted to talk about because 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:31.640 I came across a paper that I thought was pretty interesting. Um, 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:34.400 So I guess here's the best way to introduce it. 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.600 I'm gonna start with a couple of questions for anybody 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.280 who ever did school theater as a kid, If you 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.920 were in plays when you're in you know, elementary school 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.200 or whatever. If you ever had a speaking part in 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:50.000 a play, can you still now remember any of your lines? 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:54.480 And if so, how much can you remember? And then 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.560 the second part is uh, same time of your life, 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:01.600 If you ever had a singing part the musical, can 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.240 you still remember the lyrics to any of the songs? 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.160 If you are anything like me, you probably find that 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.520 you don't really remember many spoken lines from childhood plays. 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.120 Most of the ones that stick in my head are 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:21.080 I think they're memorable because something like maybe something funny 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:25.600 or otherwise memorable happened during practice of the scene they're in, 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.600 so they sort of become a part of an episodic memory. 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.400 But but even examples like that are are pretty rare 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.880 in my memory. But I I can quite easily and 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:39.480 immediately remember all kinds of lyrics from songs that I 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.760 sang many years ago and haven't practiced since, songs from 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:48.640 the Pirates of Penzance or or like a musical adaptation 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.120 of god knows what kind of weird stuff I was 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.440 in as as a child, But like the lyrics have 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:59.160 stayed in my brain for twenty plus years. Yeah, my 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.000 my experience is much the same. Um. You know. I 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.360 think back on plays that I was in and and 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.720 and in some cases I had like pretty major roles, 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:09.600 had a lot of lines to remember, Like I believe 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:12.480 I was in a community production of other people's money, 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.400 and I remember nothing. I had nothing at all that 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.480 I said from that play, uh, which which on one 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.160 hand I understand because I didn't like love that play. 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.320 I mean, it was an enjoyable experience at the time. 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.040 But it's not like my favorite play or anything, So 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:28.600 it makes sense that I would maybe make room for 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:34.040 other things in my memory and sort of flush that information. Um. 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.080 But then, and but then. I also think back on 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:38.800 musical community theater musicals I was in, and in some 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.720 cases I had pretty major roles there. I was in 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.760 a production of seventeen seventy six, and I don't remember 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:46.720 any of the music from that. I don't remember. I 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.240 remember the costumes and sort of the experience, but I 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.400 remember no words that came out of my mouth. Well, 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:54.400 for me, I don't know how much it has to do. 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.200 I mean, I don't think I have any particular love 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:59.720 for like the Pirates of pens Ants, but I could 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:01.840 still rather. You know, I am the very model of 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.000 a modern major general. All the you know, the from 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.920 Marathon to Waterloo in order categorical And this is interesting 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.840 to me because in both cases the lines I spoke 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.520 in the lyrics I sang are collections of verbal text. 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.720 In both cases, I would have made a conscious effort 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.880 to memorize them, and I would have practiced them by 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.640 repeating them out loud over and over. But for the 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.320 most part, the spoken lines for me completely fade away, 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.199 and a lot of the song lyrics have remained. They 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.240 have way more staying power overall. Obviously I don't remember 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:41.200 all of them, So what's making the difference? Yeah? This, this, 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:44.240 This is interesting because I also think back on things 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.840 that I liked. For instance, um, I had to learn 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:51.760 the Dagger monologue from Macbeth Forum, just a Shakespearean acting 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.160 class I took once and I love I love that monologue, 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.280 a great monologue, And there have been times since then 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.280 where I kind of wish I could just belt that 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:04.079 monologue in its entirety, but I cannot. It's it's mostly 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:06.400 gone just with you know, a few lines remain, and 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:08.040 if I read it, you know, it comes sort of 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.679 comes back to me a little bit. But then there 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.720 are things like Don McClain's American Pie, a song that 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.640 I have never performed. It's not like community theater or 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:19.520 something where I had to get up and actually performed 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.319 this stuff in front of people and work through memorize 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.079 and work through stage fright. But with with American Pie, 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.280 I could probably recite all of that right now. I 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:29.880 haven't listened to it in a in a in a 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.920 long time. But like that, is a that is a 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:35.720 song where like the entire um uh, you know, the 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:38.800 entirety of the lyrics, you know, they're just stuck in 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.040 my head and they're not going anywhere. Uh. And it's 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.560 because of the power of the music. I guess, well, 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.040 maybe maybe not. I mean, I guess it's hard to 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.400 say why exactly it is that these lyrics seem to 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.320 stick with us for so long. Now. Another thing, just 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:56.160 from personal experience to sort of inform this question, is 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.640 that I have also, definitely in my life, back when 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.160 I was in school, uh, tried to use melody as 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.840 a mnemonic device when trying to memorize things for a test. 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:08.840 I don't know if you ever did this, but I remember, 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.680 like trying to create songs or set things. I was 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.280 trying to remember to the melodies of existing songs. And 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:17.280 I don't know if it worked for me, but I 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.320 at least I thought it might work enough that I 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.400 tried to do it. Well. Yeah, I don't have a 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.720 lot of personal experience with this, but I've I've you know, 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:28.719 I've heard that it works for some people, like some 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:34.120 people and and in general I'm talking about Western um 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:41.560 sinologists sometimes memorize the dynasties of China by using a 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:43.440 particular song. I forget which a song. Idea is that 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.360 it's like some Western song and then American. It's not, 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:49.320 but you can you can look it up. I remember 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.880 finding a video of like a couple of old sinologists, 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:56.400 Western sinologists setting around singing this little childhood tune because 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:59.640 it's how they both learned the order of the dynasty's. 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:02.520 So it definitely works for people. But I don't think 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.040 I ever really leaned on it myself. Okay, well I 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:07.360 would like to hear that. Maybe have to look that 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.800 up later. But so I was wondering a couple of things. 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.920 So first of all, is this preference for at least 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:18.079 the perceived ability to memorize song lyrics over other verbal content. 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.880 Is this just me? And second, is there any evidence 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.920 that this actually works, that this is actually true? So 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:28.199 the first thing is it seems based on what we've 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.319 been talking about, it may not be universal, but it's 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.240 definitely not just me. I found plenty of articles in 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:37.320 the mainstream press about using music as a mnemonic device 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:41.559 or a learning tool, and some researchers thinking that that 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:46.600 music or setting verbal information to music might help people 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:49.880 remember it better. But the second question would be is 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.320 there evidence that it actually works? And there I think 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.800 the evidence might not be a firm yes or no. 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.400 It's actually quite complicated, but complicated in in ways that 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:03.080 seem pretty interesting and might reveal some things about our 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:06.640 experience of music and about the way memory works. So 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.200 there are actually a ton of studies on the role 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:13.240 of music and the effects of music on memorization and 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:17.120 verbal learning. Um, so I I can't do do that 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.800 whole slate of literature. Instead, I wanted to start by 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:23.160 focusing on one study that I found interesting and then 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.960 maybe comment a little more broadly. So this study was 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.360 published in two thousand seven in the journal Memory and Cognition. 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:33.520 It is by Omilie Rossett and Isabelle Perettes, and it's 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:38.240 called learning Lyrics to Sing or Not to Sing. And 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.680 they begin by talking about this existing popular belief that 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.000 we've already been discussing, as well as some empirical evidence 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:49.120 that music can possibly aid in memory, especially learning of 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:53.360 verbal information, learning of words. And so they cite a 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.320 few examples, such as previous studies one by Dixon and 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:00.280 Grant in two thousand three that investigated trying to learned 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.600 the laws of physics through karaoke that sounds both sweet 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.640 and really cringe inducing. And then secondly, they mentioned to 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.720 study my Medina from nineteen three that looked into learning 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.320 English as a second language via songs, with the idea 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.760 that songs might provide an advantage over just normal verbal content. 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:22.880 But the authors point out that if it's true that 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:28.200 singing and music help with learning verbal information, it's not 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:31.760 obvious why that should be the case, because, after all, 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:36.000 when you learn a song, there's literally more information that 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:39.640 you have to encode and retrieve than when just learning, 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.800 say that the text of a song, just the lyrics, 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:45.840 because you're you're adding music on top of it. It 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.800 seems like that would be more to remember, might be distracting, 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.600 and thus would uh, you know, would make things harder. Yeah, 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.240 I mean, if if memory serves uh. Some actors use 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.720 the technique of learning their lines flat without any kind 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.400 of motion added to them, and then that come then 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:04.800 they build on that later, you know, So they start 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.120 without any additional information aside from the words, and you know, 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.560 of course you know the meaning behind the words, right, 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.520 And though uh, though I guess we we should always 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.160 remember that acting techniques are not necessarily informed by the 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:21.240 latest memory and cognition. Yeah, like then all these things, 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.680 there's also a certain amount of tradition and different views 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.000 on performance that you know that that may not be 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:30.680 scientifically verified, right, But that's another thing like we've like 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:32.480 we were talking about that, you know, at least it 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:34.720 grows out of personal experience. So you have to wonder 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:38.120 if there's something there that could be plumbed by empirical research. 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:48.040 So the authors here are Stt and Parretts. They note 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.680 that in previous studies, the results looking into this question 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.360 on whether music aids in in verbal learning and memory 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.800 formation and retrieval, the results have been kind of mixed. 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:02.160 But while they're this is not the universal finding, there 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:04.199 have been a number of studies that show people have 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:09.520 an easier time recalling sung words over spoken words. Now, 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.080 in their introductory section they talk about a few reasons 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.520 they're hypothesized for why this might be. Why might if 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.560 people do remember words from songs better than the same 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.679 words spoken, what what would be going on there? And 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.760 so they say, well, maybe, uh, speed actually plays a role, 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.840 because when you take a text and you sing it, 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.760 generally you will spend a longer time pronouncing the words 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.480 in the text, then if you just read it or 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.520 recite it out loud, and thus it the text is 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:44.240 sort of less compressed. They also say that the characteristics 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.600 of the melody seem to be important because a simple 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.719 melody that has a very sort of repeated line seems 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:54.320 to be easier to memorize than complex melodies like you 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.760 might find and say, an opera or something. But then 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:00.679 also that they offer another reason that saw lyrics might 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:05.479 be easier to memorize, which are structural characteristics of the 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.920 text that make it easier to recall. So to read 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.840 from their introduction quote, for instance, the metrical structure of 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.719 music and the number of musical notes in a line 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.800 can queue word recall. Similarly, song lyrics are usually constrained 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.919 by both semantics, meaning meaning that there is like a 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.760 meaning constraint on what can be said in a song. 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.360 So they say a story underlies the words, generally through 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.280 a schema or script. Uh. And then so you you've 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.080 got the semantic constraints. You know, the song sort of 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.240 has to tell a story that makes sense. That certainly 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.159 not true of all songs, especially these days. Um. But 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:43.720 then the other thing would be sound patterns, and this 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.440 would be things like rhymes or alliteration, which they also say, 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:51.280 megan limit possibilities of what types of words could come next. 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:54.399 You know, these offer you some schema of of you know, 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.760 predicting what the rest of the line would be. That 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.600 that's interesting because makes me think of American Pie. It 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:05.560 also makes me think of Warren's Van's Roland the Headless 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.480 Thompson Gunner, both long songs that I easily remember, but 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:13.720 both of them are are very narrative songs. The lyrics 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.159 tell a story, especially with Roland. You know, there's a beginning, 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:19.399 a middle, and an end to it. There's a climax, 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.400 and they've both got very regular rhythm in the delivery 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.880 and uh and a rhyme scheme. And so those things 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:30.239 can help you remember because they limit the possibilities of 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.200 what could be coming up next in the song. If 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:34.719 you know the say the rhyme sound at the end 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:36.919 of the last line, that helps give you a clue 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.439 as to what the next line is. Whereas you know, 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:43.400 you might have trouble recalling otherwise. Yeah, And the authors 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.359 here note and interesting thing they say when errors occur 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.280 in song recall, they say quote, the changes usually preserve 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.000 the rhyme and the number of syllables in the line. 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:58.639 So if you were say, singing American Pie, and you 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.600 couldn't remember drove my chevy to the levy, but the 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:03.720 levy was dry, you might at least be able to say, 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:07.840 took my chevy from the levy and I looked at 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:09.800 the sky. You know, it would be something that preserved 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:14.200 the rhyme and preserved the meter the number of syllables. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:20.080 a misheard and misconstrued lyrics are still going to They're 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.720 still going to meet the basic framework that was presented 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.800 in the song. So anyway, in this study, the authors 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.879 did a couple of experiments to see if learning verbal 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:34.920 materials through song actually did provide a memory advantage over 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:40.080 learning the same verbal materials just recited or spoken. And 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:43.320 so there were three different conditions as people were trying 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:45.720 to learn the lyrics of an unfamiliar song, and there're 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:49.640 three different conditions here. So first is the sung sung condition, 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:53.160 and in this condition, the subject would have the song 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:55.960 sung to them and then they would try to sing 0:20:56.040 --> 0:21:00.240 it back. Second is the sung spoken condition, and year 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.320 they would have the song sung to them, but then 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.360 they would try to speak the lyrics back and then 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:09.879 the next condition. I thought this was interesting. They tried 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:14.119 something called the divided spoken condition, and this is where 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.879 they would be presented with the lyrics but not sung, 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.320 though they would be hearing the accompanying background music. And 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:24.679 I guess this was to try this was sort of 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:26.960 a control to try to rule out Wait a minute, 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:29.480 could it just be that having the music going on 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.840 while you're learning the words is what contributes to learning 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:36.399 and not the fact that the lyrics themselves are being sung. 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.760 M Now, that's interesting. That makes me think of of 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:44.080 of songs like the Moody Blues Knights and White Satin, 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:46.960 which has of course traditional lyrics, but then also has 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.359 that spoken words segment, and thinking back on it, like 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.159 I can, I can remember a lot of that spoken 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:57.400 words segment from Knights and White Satin, despite the fact 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:00.000 that it's not like, you know, a piece that I'm 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:04.359 particularly attached to, but that the words will come. Well. 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:06.119 I guess so in one of the conditions, that's what 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:08.080 they're going to test here, that does that does the 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:11.640 spoken words section actually have a memory advantage over just 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:15.760 something being spoken without any music? Um? So in keeping 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:17.879 with sort of the conventional wisdom and with what a 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:20.760 number of studies had found before, they predicted that the 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.080 sung sung condition would create the best word recall. So 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:26.960