Research
See also: Research Tools
Memory, self, and healthy aging
In my postdoctoral work at the University of Arizona, working with Dr. Jessica Andrews-Hanna and Dr. Matthew Grilli, I investigate how people construct and maintain a coherent sense of self across the adult lifespan. In a preregistered study of younger and older adults, we found that older adults showed greater stability in self-representation than younger adults, and that this stability predicted well-being across age groups (see Hennessy et al., 2025).
A companion line of work examines how people integrate autobiographical memories, exploring how individuals connect personal episodes to broader themes of meaning and temporal context during recall. We show that older adults show an advantage in meaning integration (linking memories to personal significance), that integration is related to the semantic details in recall and that integrative details confer social and communicative benefits to a conversation partner. Together, this work offers an adaptive account of the semantic shift in cognitive aging. We are currently expanding this work to investigate neural correlates of autobiographical integration, using both resting-state and task-based fMRI.
This work is funded by the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium Pilot Research Funding Award, awarded to Matthew Grilli (PI), Jessica Andrews-Hanna, (PI) and Sarah Hennessy (Co-I).
Music-Evoked Nostalgia and Autobiographical Memory
Anecdotal evidence for the preservation of music-evoked autobiographical memories in dementia suggests that musical pieces may temporarily "unlock" an individual with otherwise apparent memory impairment. I seek to understand how personally-meaningful music elicits nostalgia and autobiographical memory in younger and older adults, with future applications for individuals with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias. I utilize functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), behavioral memory assessments, and machine-learning music-personalization tools to assess the neural and behavioral basis of how music elicits nostalgia, an emotional state underlying autobiographical memories.
Neural correlates of music-evoked nostalgia across the lifespan
In this ongoing study, I use personalized music to identify neural systems involved in music-evoked nostalgia using fMRI, in healthy younger and older adults. We observed that nostalgic music, more than non-nostalgic familiar music, was associated with activation of the default mode network, reward regions, and the medial temporal lobe in both younger and older adults. Findings will be the basis for music-based AD interventions by demonstrating how music-evoked nostalgia is preserved neurally across the lifespan.
This work is published in Human Brain Mapping. Results have also been featured in popular press here.
This project is funded by the Grammy Museum Foundation, awarded to Sarah Hennessy as PI.
In 2025, we received funding to extend this work in a sample of older adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment, supported by the NIA/NIH Music & Dementia Research Network Pilot Research Award, awarded to Sarah Hennessy and Assal Habibi as Co-Is.
Predictors of nostalgic experience through music
In this project, I designed a machine-learning tool to identify musically-matched, familiar, but non-nostalgic Control songs to pair with a participant's self-selected Nostalgia song, allowing for ideal conditions of individualization while maintaining experimental control. I then conducted a study with over 750 participants to assess the musical (chords, lyrics) and psychological (personality, empathy) predictors of experiencing nostalgic through music. This work, in collaboration with Computer Scientist Tim Greer, is currently under review for publication.
The tool we developed to musically-match stimuli is available publicly at SoundsLikeThis.us, and for integration into research at our GitHub page.
This work is funded by the USC Department of Psychology, awarded to Sarah Hennessy as PI.
Music-evoked autobiographical memories in older adults from under-represented communities
This ongoing study investigates whether individualized memory-evoking, compared to musically-matched control, music immediately benefits autobiographical memory in older adults from underrepresented communities. Despite that People-of-Colour are disproportionately affected by dementia, they are under-included in research. We examine memory retrieval, mechanism, and “reliving” in a 13-week longitudinal study conducted with adults identifying as BIPOC across the United States. Findings will inform future investigations of memory-evoking music on autobiographical memory and neural mechanisms in clinical populations.
This project is funded by the Society for Education, Music, and Psychology Research, awarded to Sarah Hennessy as PI.
Music in the COVID-19 Pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I explored how participants across four different countries used music to cope with emotions and pandemic-related stressors.. We observed a positive relationship between music-listening, emotion regulation, and current well-being, indicating that across countries music listening was an effective tool in managing a global stressor (see Hennessy et al., 2021.)
Using Music to Improve Speech-in-Noise Perception
"Brain Choir" at the USC Brain and Creativity Institute
Speech-in-noise perception, the ability to hear a relevant voice within a noisy background, is important for successful communication. In this project, I explored the effects of musicianship and music training on speech-in-noise perception in adults across the age spectrum in a multi-level meta-analysis and two randomized-control trials. We observed indicated that musicians demonstrated greater speech-in-noise perception than non-musicians (see Hennessy et al., 2022), participants involved in choral training demonstrated enhanced auditory encoding of speech-in-noise as indexed by changes in early auditory-evoked potentials (RCT 1, see Hennessy et al., 2021) and improved feelings of autonomy (RCT2, see Herschel and Hennessy et al., 2022).
This project was funded by the California Translational Science Institute, awarded to Dr. Assal Habibi as PI.
Music Training and Child Development
With, Dr. Assal Habibi, I worked to investigate the effects of music training on child development in children from underserved communities of Los Angeles. Specifically, I explored the development of inhibitory control skills and related neural networks in children involved in four years of music training as compared to children with sports training or no systematic training. In this longitudinal study, music participants showed accelerated inhibitory control development in several measures as evidenced by performance on behavioral tasks and neural cognitive control networks (see Hennessy et al., 2019)
