EFFECT OF MUSICAL IMPROVISATION IN VISUAL EMOTIONAL MEMORY

NADIA JUSTEL; VERONIKA DIAZ ABRAHAN

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 2do. Congreso de la Federación de Sociedades de Neurociencias de Latinoamérica y el Caribe (FALAN) XXXI Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2016

FALAN

The literature establish a close relationship between music, emotions and memory systems. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of musical improvisation, as a music-therapeutic technique, on visual emotional memory of young adults who had or not musical training. Young adult volunteers participated, students of the Psychology Faculty at the University of Buenos Aires, randomly assigned to the different groups and experimental treatments, with an intersubject design. We employed 36 selected images from the IAPS (International Affective Pictures System), some emotionally activating (12 with positive and 12 with negative valence) and 12 with neutral valence. When the participants watched the images they had to rated how emotional the images were for them from 0 to 10 (nothing / highly activating). They were then exposed to the experimental treatment (musical improvisation) or the control condition (no sound stimuli). Free recall and recognition was then evaluated, both immediate and delayed (after a week). The main finding of this study indicated that musical improvisation improves immediate and delayed free recall of neutral and emotionally pictures (negative and positive), and the effect of musical improvisation appears to be more pronounced in participants who were unfamiliar with the technique and had no musical training.