Music and Autobiographical Memories

Music often evokes vivid autobiographical memories and emotions. Accordingly, excerpts of music may serve as potent retrieval cues with which to study the functional architecture of autobiographical memory. In this talk I will address the question of where the integration of music with autobiographically salient information might be achieved. First I will review evidence that attentive listening to music engages domain-general attention and working memory circuits, and will then focus on evidence suggesting that the medial prefrontal cortex is a site for the integration of music, memories, and emotion.