Music recognition without identification and its relation to déjà entendu: A study using “Piano Puzzlers”

Abstract

Abstract The feeling of familiarity--the sensation of recognizing a situation without identifying any relevant prior experience—is one of the many ways in which people can experience a sensation of memory during retrieval failure. The present study is concerned with the experience of familiarity with music, and with using music as a means of investigating the auditory version of deja vu known as deja entendu. Previous laboratory research on the sensation of familiarity with music used the recognition without identification paradigm; familiarity was induced during retrieval failure through the systematic isolation of experimentally familiarized musical features (e.g., rhythm and pitch). While strong in experimental control, this method may have created an artificial laboratory situation unlike the experience of familiarity with music in real-life. The present study applied the recognition without identification paradigm to a more ecologically valid familiarity experience with music: that induced by Piano Puzzlers. On the weekly radio program Piano Puzzlers, people call in to the show and attempt to identify the song and the style from which musical composer Bruce Adolphe created that week s Piano Puzzler. The present study demonstrates that the recognition without identification effect shown with Piano Puzzlers is dependent on reports of deja entendu.