Psycholinguistic inquiry can provide insight into the way the words people use reflect psychological states, including emotional states. There is limited research on the use of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software to investigate the psycholinguistic properties of emotional memories related to music. The purpose of this study was to test the extent to which LIWC can be used in the analysis of autobiographical memories related to music. Participants were undergraduates (N = 99) at two large universities in the southeastern United States. Each participant was asked to write about times in their lives when music or experiences with music made them feel positive or negative emotions. The researchers conducted a content analysis of participants’ responses and used LIWC software to quantify emotion words (positive and negative), pronouns, causal thinking words, and insight words. Participants used significantly more positive than negative emotion words to describe positive memories of music, but there was no significant difference between the rates of negative and positive emotion words to describe negative memories of music. The content analysis revealed a similar trend: 51% of participants described mixed, conflicting, or changing emotions when describing negative experiences, whereas descriptions of positive experiences tended to be highly positive. Many participants wrote about social experiences and musical achievement. Results of this study offer insights on how humans describe music-related autobiographical memories. LIWC appears to be a useful tool for method triangulation when performing qualitative analysis of emotions in autobiographical memories of musical experiences.

心理语言探究可以洞察人们使用的词语反映心理状态（包括情绪状态）的方式。关于使用语言查询和单词计数 （LIWC）软件来调查与音乐相关的情感记忆的心理语言特性的研究很少。这项研究的目的是测试LIWC在与音乐有关的自传式记忆分析中可以使用的程度。参加者为大学生（N= 99）在美国东南部的两所大型大学中。每位参与者都被要求写下他们的生活中音乐或音乐经历使他们感到积极或消极情绪的时间。研究人员对参与者的反应进行了内容分析，并使用LIWC软件量化了情感词（正负），代词，因果思维词和洞察力词。参与者使用正面情绪词来表达音乐的正面记忆要比负面情绪词多得多，但是负面和正面情绪词在描述音乐的负面记忆上的比率没有显着差异。内容分析显示出类似的趋势：51％的参与者在描述负面经历时描述了混合，冲突或变化的情绪，而对积极经历的描述往往是高度积极的。许多参与者写了关于社会经历和音乐成就的文章。这项研究的结果为人们如何描述音乐相关的自传式记忆提供了见识。当对音乐经历的自传记忆中的情绪进行定性分析时，LIWC似乎是方法三角剖分的有用工具。