Abstract

In this chapter we briefly but critically review current research on musicinduced emotions, and the emotional response to music evoked memories. Current research struggles with finding appropriate approaches to investigate music-evoked memories. One new method is the use of self-selected rather than experimenter-selected music. As part of an empirical study we tested the validity of using self-selected music to study music-evoked memories. Moreover, with the use of self-selected music, we tested and confirmed the hypothesis that music that evokes sad memories is more like to portray sad than happy emotions. It was additionally found that familiarity of self-selected music is linked to liking, aesthetic value, meaningfulness, intensity of emotional response, vividness of mental imagery, and detail of the memory.