Sound Triggers Memory
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The audible past is a term historians use to describe the soundscapes associated with past events. Your audible past is the soundtrack of your life. For example, sonic booms are part of my historic soundtrack. I grew up in an Air Force family; I am familiar with fighter jets and the occasional sonic boom when the jet’s speed exceeds the speed of sound, a rare but memorable event. Several years ago, I was living in a small town in NJ. While passing over the downtown area, a fighter jet exceeded the speed of sound, resulting in a sonic boom. The boom caused some of the historic buildings to shake. The aircraft was not visible, so the boom sounded atmospheric. You can imagine, for some, it caused great concern. But not for me. I knew that I heard a sonic boom because it elicited an acoustic memory from my audible past.
We tend to think about the past visually, but imagery, sound, and other sensory memories can intersect. The sensory components act as a guidepost to understand the memory. For example, you remember the house was old because the floorboards creaked as you walked across them. The windows were open; you heard the rustling of shrubbery outside the home, so there must have been a breeze.
Sound and music can equally agitate and soothe. Your audible past is full of joyful and jarring noises. The sound of children playing at a birthday party is distinctly different from that of a jackhammer on the construction site across the street. What’s interesting is how focusing on one can evoke happiness and the other, irritation. Two acoustic memories can bring forth opposing emotions, stimulating different memories of the same event. This is where your audible past gets interesting. Do you focus on the sound of the jackhammer and remember with irritation that you did not enjoy the event? Or do you focus on the children laughing and remember you also laughed?
The audible past is more than the soundscape associated with memory. It is a historical record of the technologies developed because we hear, like the record player and the radio, which impacted the efficiency of communication, information exchange, and entertainment. Because we can record and playback music, we can listen to music recorded in the 50s right now. Music has psychosocial implications. Patients with significant memory and word recall deficits will sing along to music from their youth. Even as memory recall slows and social interaction wanes, songs from the patient’s youth can continue to activate emotional memory and stimulate verbal proficiency as the patient participates in a group sing-along. The music-evoked memories provide an opportunity for social connection.
Your audible past is a form of record-keeping that affects perception. Does your audible past include the sound of seagulls during summers spent at the beach? Seagulls can live inland near rivers or lakes. If you walk along a river and hear a seagull cry, you might remember pleasant summer days digging holes in the sand. Or you might remember how you felt attacked when they came to get your fries. Most people know the sound of a happy birthday song and the companion emotions—happiness, excitement, embarrassment. A sound or a song can bring you back to a time of great peace or unease. What is the soundtrack of your life?
Video: Sound Triggers Memory
Sound Triggers Memory
Audio overview of blog post