Psychologists investigating how musical memories affect a person's identity are using The Beatles as a tool for study.
The Leeds University academics are asking people to think back to moments in their lives that some how connect with the Liverpool band, whether that be in reference to key Beatles events like the assassination of John Lennon, or to more personal thoughts or events connected to the Fab Four and their music. The idea, apparently, is to create a database of "autobiographical memories" triggered by certain cues, and to show that music in particular has a particularly powerful tendency to provoke the recollection of events. Or something like that.
Dr Catriona Morrison says this: "We are using an iconic cultural entity to get all those memories in one place and to try to assess the influence that the Beatles had on people's lives, whether you were there in the 1960s or if you grew up in the 1980s, virtually everybody has got some thoughts or memories about the Beatles".
Professor Martin Conway adds: "The reason why we're interested in this is we're interested in a thing called generation identity. So we're quite interested in how your memory of your own personal experiences is linked into public events. One of the things we hope to analyse are which Beatles cues trigger the most memories and why? Is it a song, album or news event? Does this memory depend upon the age you were when the memory event occurred or is it more closely related to how strongly you feel about the Beatles or the memory itself?"
If you understand any of this, you can participate here: http://www.magicalmemorytour.com/