Lifelong learning and musical autobiography

Abstract

This contribution aims to verify whether using musical autobiography, an art-based pedagogical device, encourages transformative, formative and self-formative processes in elder subjects suffering from mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's, according to the perspective of continuing education. Said research has focused on the possibility of interpreting the functioning of the emotional communication system between implicit and explicit memory in order to understand the relationship between the neural plasticity and the subjects behaviour after listening to music. The quantitative and qualitative variation of autobiographical memories with their internal components (episodic and self-defining memories) was chosen as the litmus test to evaluate the activation of transformative processes. In conclusion, the results interpreted using a mixed methodology confirmed the effectiveness of musical autobiography in promoting formative/transformative developments in subjects with mild cognitive impairment.

Keywords: musical autobiography, Alzheimer's, emotions, autobiographical memories.