Members in the Media
From: The Wall Street Journal

Parents’ Music Shapes the Way Kids Think, Study Finds

The Wall Street Journal:

Today’s music fans have more positive memories of the songs of their parents’ generation than had been previously thought, according to a study published in the current edition of Psychological Science.

The authors, Carol Lynne Krumhansl of Cornell University’s Department of Psychology and her former student Justin Adam Zupnick of the University of California, Santa Cruz, say the study is the first to show that music transmitted from generation to generation shapes lasting autobiographical memories, preferences and emotional responses, a phenomenon they call “cascading reminiscence bumps.”

Reminiscence bumps refers to older adults’ proclivity to remember events that occurred during adolescence and early childhood.   Previous studies have shown that older adults recognize the music of their late teens and early 20s with greater specificity and stronger emotions than music from other periods.

Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal

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