'The Memory of All That': The Effects of Music on Paradoxical Lucidity in Older Adults
Abstract
Some individuals with dementia experience unexplained periods of improved cognition in response to music. We examined the effects of music tempo and familiarity on a cognitively demanding task to replicate this improvement. We had 37 healthy older adults (21 females, mean age 67.5, SD = 5.49) complete a divergent thinking task before and after listening to a 25-minute personalized playlist. Playlists contained music that was either familiar or unfamiliar and either fast or slow. We expected participants in the familiar and fast conditions to score significantly better on the task after listening than those in the unfamiliar and slow conditions, respectively, but improvement would be significantly larger in the familiar than fast conditions. We found no significant effects of tempo or familiarity on pre- vs. post-test scores. This study may have been underpowered, and further data collection is indicated to understand what music should be used therapeutically in dementia.