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Cited by 137Memory Processes and InfluencesNeuroscience and Music PerceptionMultisensory perception and integration

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The cognitive processing of film and musical soundtracks

Open access
Boltz, Marilyn G.·2004·Memory & Cognition
DOI 10.3758/bf03196892
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Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that musical soundtracks can influence the interpretation, emotional impact, and remembering of film information. The intent here was to examine how music is encoded into the cognitive system and subsequently represented relative to its accompanying visual action. In Experiment 1, participants viewed a set of music/film clips that were either congruent or incongruent in their emotional affects. Selective attending was also systematically manipulated by instructing viewers to attend to and remember the music, film, or both in tandem. The results from tune recognition, film recall, and paired discrimination tasks collectively revealed that mood-congruent pairs lead to a joint encoding of music/film information as well as an integrated memory code. Incongruent pairs, on the other hand, result in an independent encoding in which a given dimension, music or film, is only remembered well if it was selectively attended to at the time of encoding. Experiment 2 extended these findings by showing that tunes from mood-congruent pairs are better recognized when cued by their original scenes, while those from incongruent pairs are better remembered in the absence of scene information. These findings both support and extend the "Congruence Associationist Model" (A. J. Cohen, 2001), which addresses those cognitive mechanisms involved in the processing of music/film information.

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Citations

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Metadata

Authors
Boltz, M. G.
Affiliations
Haverford College (US)
Corresponding author
Boltz, Marilyn G.
ORCID
Boltz, Marilyn G.
Venue
Memory & Cognition
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2004-10
Volume
32
Issue
7
Pages
1194-1205
ISSN
  • 0090-502X (ISSN-L)
  • 1532-5946
DOI
10.3758/bf03196892
OpenAlex
W2008689769
Cited by
137
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 8
FWCI
1.17
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
Locations
  • Memory & Cognition (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
Haverford College
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
Keywords
film soundtrack, mood-congruent memory, selective attention, joint encoding, music memory
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Affect, Association Learning, Attention, Auditory Perception, Discrimination Learning, Humans, Memory, Short-Term, Motion Pictures, Music, Reaction Time, Mental Recall, Reference Values, Students, Visual Perception, Comprehension

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Boltz, M. G. (2004). The cognitive processing of film and musical soundtracks. Memory & Cognition. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03196892

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