I love music, both playing and listening, as maybe frequent readers already have noticed. Two new studies are published on the topic of music and children.

The first research by undergraduate student, Rie Davies, and academics Dr Maddie Ohl and Dr Anne Manyande from the School of Psychology at the University of West London, explored the pro-sociability, co-operation and problem-solving abilities of 24 girls and 24 boys aged four. And they found that making music can improve both pro-social behaviour (voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another) and the problem solving skills.

From the press release:

The children in the study were randomly assigned to either a ‘Music’ Group (Group 1) or a ‘No Music’ Group (Group 2). Children in Group 1 (Music) sang and played the percussion bullfrog and children in Group 2 (No Music) listened to a story. These sequences were then followed by two games a ‘Co-operation’ game and a ‘Helping’ game. The children’s problem solving ability was tested by observing their reactions during the ‘Helping’ game.

Music improved helpfulness for both girls and boys with children in the ‘Music’ group over thirty times more likely to help than those in the ‘No Music’ group. Girls were over twenty times more likely to help than boys. Making music was also shown to improve co-operation among all the children in the ‘Music Group’ who were six times more likely to co-operate than those in the ‘No Music’ Group. Once again girls were even more likely to co-operate after music making than boys. Boys in the ‘Music’ Group were also four times more likely to problem solve.

Rie Davies said: “This study provides support for prior research by Kirschner and Tomasello (2010)1 and also highlights the need for schools and parents to understand the important role music making has in children’s lives in terms of social bonding and helping behaviours. Music making in class, particularly singing, may encourage pupils with learning differences and emotional difficulties to feel less alienated in the school environment.”

If we become older, music of our childhood can have a sentimental effect, but what about the music before we were young? What, wait a minute? From the press release:

New research suggests that young adults today are fond of and have an emotional connection to the music that was popular for their parents’ generation.

“Music transmitted from generation to generation shapes autobiographical memories, preferences, and emotional responses, a phenomenon we call cascading ‘reminiscence bumps,’” explains psychological scientist and lead researcher Carol Lynne Krumhansl of Cornell University. “These new findings point to the impact of music in childhood and likely reflect the prevalence of music in the home environment.”

The study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveals that while songs that were popular in our early 20s seem to have the greatest lasting emotional impact, music that was popular during our parents’ younger days also evokes vivid memories.

To explore the connection between autobiographical memories and musical memories, Krumhansl and Justin Zupnick of the University of California, Santa Cruz asked 62 college-age participants to listen to two top Billboard hits per year from 1955 to 2009.

The researchers wanted to see which periods of music were most memorable for the participants, which songs conjured up the strongest feelings, and which ones made the participants happy, sad, energized, or nostalgic. In addition, participants were asked whether they remembered listening to the song by themselves, with their parents, or amongst friends.

The data revealed that participants’ personal memories associated with songs increased steadily as they got older, from birth until the present day. This finding makes sense – we recall more recent songs better, ascribe memories to them more easily, and feel a stronger emotional connection with them.

But the more surprising finding — one which the researchers didn’t expect to see — was a drastic bump in memories, recognition, perceived quality, liking, and emotional connection with the music that was popular in the early 1980s, when the participants’ parents were about 20-25 years old. That is, participants seemed to demonstrate a particular affinity for the songs their parents were listening to as young adults.

Previous research has shown that the music we encounter during late adolescence and early adulthood has the greatest impact on our lives. But these findings suggest that the music played throughout childhood can also leave a lasting impact.

And there was another, albeit smaller, ‘reminiscence bump’ for the music of the 1960s – more than two decades before the participants were born. Krumhansl and Zupnick speculate that reminiscence for this music could have been transmitted from the participants’ grandparents, who would have been in their 20s or 30s in the 1960s.

Another possibility — one that might be favored by those of the Baby Boomer generation — is that the music of the 1960s is truly of higher quality.

The researchers are launching a web-based survey to explore these questions further. The survey will include a century of top hits and Krumhansl and Zupnick hope that listeners of all ages, especially older adults, will participate.

“It will be fascinating to see if we can trace intergenerational influences back through more generations, better understand the ‘sixties’ bump,’ and look for effects of the vast changes in music technology that have occurred over the last century,” says Krumhansl.