During my PhD I became interested in how musicians are able to ‘filter out’ sounds during a performance – to listen to other players at the same time as focus on their own sound. I also read an article that suggested musicians are able to perform a similar feat when they are memorising music – background sound did not seem to have as disruptive an effect as we might expect to see when performing a memory tas. The irrelevant sound effect is a fairly robust memory phenomenon that has been used numerous times in research as a model for how our memories encode and process different sounds. One issue that…

Researchers have long suspected that music has a unique role in memory, and one of the most striking examples of this link is the way that memory for music seems to survive as we age or in cases where cognitive function is impaired by illness or injury. Often individuals whose memories are failing can still recall favourite songs and lyrics. There is also the case of Clive Wearing. Clive was an accomplished musicologist and conductor when he was struck down with encephalitis in his 40s, resulting in a dense amnesia. Despite having a current memory span of between only 7-30 seconds, and not being about to recall any of his…