False memories in music listening: exploring the misinformation effect and individual difference factors in auditory memory

Abstract

False memories in music listening: Exploring the misinformation effect and individual difference factors in auditory memory The study of false memory has had a profound impact on our understanding of how and what we remember, as shown by the misinformation paradigm (Loftus, 2005). Though misinformation effects have been demonstrated extensively within visual tasks, they have not yet been explored in the realm of non-visual auditory stimuli. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate whether post-event information can create false memories of music listening episodes. In addition, we explored individual difference factors potentially associated with false memory susceptibility in music, including age, suggestibility, personality, and musical training. In two music recognition tasks, participants (N= 151) listened to an initial music track, which unbeknownst to them was missing an instrument. They were then presented with post-event information which either suggested the presence of the missing instrument or did not. The presence of misinformation resulted in significantly poorer performance on the music recognition tasks (d= .43), suggesting the existence of false musical memories. A random forest analysis indicated that none of the individual difference factors assessed were significantly associated with misinformation susceptibility. These findings support previous research on the fallibility of human memory and demonstrate, to some extent, the generality of the misinformation effect to a non-visual auditory domain.

Do the shuffle: Exploring reasons for music listening through shuffled play

“…The results highlight the relationship that listeners have with particular artists as a driving force when describing and making judgments about music. It has previously been shown that the perceived prestige of the artists of a track can change the judgements people make about the same musical pieces when they are told they are different [21]. A performer's status can bias the evaluation of musical stimuli [38] and empathy with an artist was found to be an important factor in aesthetic experiences of music and poetry [39].…”

“…Much of the research reviewed so far has either presented participants with experimenterselected music or asked people to report preferred styles, recreate memories of their favourite music, or talk about the music they like. One main drawback of these approaches is that participants either have no choice of musical stimulus or they are relying on memory which, although sometimes vivid [19,20], is not always accurate [21]. A more robust way of exploring preference is to focus on people's own music collections.…”

The busking experiment: A field study measuring behavioral responses to street music performances.

“…Nevertheless, despite the popularity of behavioural economics, the field has not yet been applied explicitly to the study of judgements and decision-making processes in the context of music listening and music-related phenomena. Thus, the behavioural economics of music (Anglada-Tort & Müllensiefen, 2017;Anglada-Tort, Baker, & Müllensiefen, 2018;Anglada-Tort, Steffens, & Müllensiefen, 2018) aims to create a solid understanding of the role that behavioural economics and the psychology of decision making can play to study music judgements, choice behaviour, and aesthetics. In the present study, we applied field research methodology commonly used by behavioural scientists and experimental economists to investigate donating behaviour and charitable giving in the real world (e.g., Ebeling et al, 2017;Ekström, 2012;Khadjavi, 2016;Moussaoui et al, 2016;Olda & Ichihashi, 2016).…”

Commentary on Canonne (2018): Listening to Improvisation

“…Finally, in the memory domain, the presence of post-event misinformation about a given music piece can impair listeners' ability to remember the music (Anglada-Tort, Baker, & Müllensiefen, 2018).…”