Tunes on the tip of your mind: Differences in metamemory for songs and instrumental pieces

Four experiments examined how style, instrumentation, and the presence of lyrics in music affected metamemory judgments in songs and instrumental pieces. Participants were given melody or title cues and asked to provide corresponding titles or melodies, or feeling of knowing (FOK) ratings. Experiment 1 showed that FOK ratings were higher with melody cues for instrumental pieces and with title cues for songs, while accuracy was higher with title cues, and eliminated the use of differing strategies as an explanation for these differences. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 when the instrumentation was altered to equate the complexity of the presented pieces. Experiment 3 showed no differences in FOK ratings or accuracy regardless of lyric presence. Finally, Experiment 4 showed that the effects in Experiment 1 disappeared when original pieces were learned as songs or instrumental pieces. Results are discussed within the context of familiarity and original encoding processes.