I remember this song

Our brain can retrive thousands of songs so easily, but not that one answer in that exam!

According to Daniel Levitin, a psychologist who studies the neuroscience of music at McGill University in Montreal, humans developed a structure in the brain that responds to music before we developed one that responds to language. This is why humans are able to respond so strongly to music. Its potent effect on the pleasure center holds a very significant place in our brains. When listening to music dopamine is excreted and this is has a large effect on the rewards section of our brain. Music is a pleasure to hear and the response we receive from it is strong enough to force our memory to give it significance and retain its lyrics and melody. This is the reason that children have an easier time remembering things taught to them in song format then just spoken to them.

Normal conversation does not induce as much dopamine therefore is doesn’t induce as many synaptic connections to cause people to keep the memory of the conversation. We also attach music to our emotions and senses; this is why some songs can spark memory and feelings such as sadness or happiness. The song brings us back to when we were listening to it often enough to allow us to memorize its lyrics, and we recall what emotional state we were in.

The reason we remember certain song lyrics has been theorized to be due to “ear worms”. Often people only remember certain segment of songs, typically the chorus or opening. The reason for this is the neural circuits in our brain are forced into a loop and wind up repeating the song, causing a song to get stuck in our heads. This repetition causes us to commit the lyrics to memory for very long amounts of time. Often our memory can be jogged by just hearing the first words of the song or opening beat. These annoying segments burrow deep into our memory hence the name earworms. So overall it seems that music is able to hold such significance in our memories due to its ability to induce dopamine and its relation to our early evolution. Unfortunately for us college students our textbooks don’t stimulate us nearly enough to allow us to memorize as much as we need to.