In his book, "This Is Your Brain On Music," Daniel J. Levitin notes the music we most remember is what we hear during our teen years. "As adults, the music we tend to be nostalgic for, the music that feels like it is 'our' music, corresponds to the music we heard during these years," he writes.
Why? "Part of the reason we remember songs from our teenage years is because those years were times of self-discovery, and as a consequence, they were emotionally charged; in general, we tend to remember things that have an emotional component because our amygdala and neurotransmitters act in concert to 'tag' the memories as something important."
Many Alzheimer's patients, despite profound memory loss, can still remember how to sing the songs they heard when they were 14.
From a personal viewpoint, the research about music and the teen years holds remarkably true for myself. The songs that I tend to recall with fond nostalgia are those I listened to around the age of 14.
How about you?
You can informally test the accuracy of the research using the form below. Simply enter your name and birth year and click the "submit" button. You'll then be shown a list of songs that were popular on the music charts around the time you were 14 years old. If the research holds true to form, you'll probably recognize many of the songs as those you, too, fondly remember.
Let me know how well it worked for you by clicking the "Feedback" link and sending me a short note. I'll chart the feedback results so you can see how others rate the accuracy of the project.
