Effects on Semantic Memory for Performers of Emotionally Expressive Music

This paper explores the influence of emotionally expressive music on the semantic memory system. Music has long been associated with memory systems, with the emotional aspect of musical representations often being the defining characteristic that makes it meaningful and vivid in memory. Despite extensive research linking musical stimuli to various memory systems, the connection between music performance and the semantic memory system remains underexplored. This paper employs a transdisciplinary literature review to investigate the potential benefits of emotionally expressive music for semantic memory. The literature was largely searched in databases including Harvard Library HOLLIS and Google Scholar, using Boolean operators and filtered by peer review, recency, and relevance. Research indicates a promising link between semantic encoding and the retrieval of induced emotions, suggesting that the emotional component of music-making may substantially impact memory consolidation. The review highlights an abundance of studies on music perception, with fewer robust findings on the effects of music-making. Synthesizing across these domains suggests the emotional, not merely technical, component of performance may be what recruits semantic processing. This review suggests the performer, not only the listener, may benefit semantically from emotionally expressive music, and identifies the possibility of a direct performance-semantic memory link as a key gap for future research.