The applicability of verbal processing strategies to recall of familiar songs

Abstract

One hundred thirty-five undergraduate nonmusic majors participated in a free-recall task in which they were asked to remember the titles of 12 songs that they heard in different sequences. The investigators were seeking evidence that cognitive categorization of the titles was based on the musical element of style. The purpose was to compare the subjects development of any apparent categorization of the musical stimuli with categorization strategies that research suggests apply to verbal information. Results indicate that many subjects seemed to categorize the musical stimuli by applying verbal stylistic labels. Furthermore, the subjects' subsequent strategies for manipulating verbal labels show many similarities to, and some differences from, how subjects would be expected to process purely verbal information. Educational implications and ideas for future research are suggested.