I was commissioned by Pentagram to work on a series of illustrations for a story in USC (University of Southern California) Trojans Magazine.
The story covers research studies about which parts of the brain are activated when you hear nostalgic music. Some of those areas are affected negatively by neurodegenerative diseases like dementia.
Vividness in the story refers to how well you can recall a memory - smells, sights, feelings, etc — and the researchers found that the vividness of memories increased when participants heard music that was nostalgic to them. So, it doesn’t open new areas of the brain, but it gives access to areas that may have been lost with dementia.
