Journal of Undergraduate Research at

Minnesota State University, Mankato

Volume 3 Article 6

2003

Effects of Popular Music on Memorization Tasks

Sarah Harmon
Minnesota State University, Mankato

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Part of the Cognitive Psychology Commons, and the Music Commons

Recommended Citation
Sandberg, Kristin and Harmon, Sarah (2003) "Effects of Popular Music on Memorization Tasks," Journal of
Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato: Vol. 3 , Article 6.
Available at: https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/jur/vol3/iss1/6

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Undergraduate Research Center at Cornerstone: A
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 Sandberg and Harmon: Effects of Popular Music on Memorization Tasks

EFFECTS OF POPULAR MUSIC ON MEMORIZATION TASKS

Kristin Sandberg & Sarah Harmon

Faculty Mentor: Rosemary Krawczyk

Minnesota State University, Mankato

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 Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Vol. 3 [2003], Art. 6

Abstract

This study investigated the effects that popular music has on memory performance. It

was proposed that popular music would adversely affect both studying and memory recall. Forty

introductory psychology students participated in the study. Subjects were given a list of fifty

words to study in 6 ½ minutes, with music either being present or absent. This was termed the

learning stage. In this study, four conditions were tested. In all 4 conditions, subjects were

assigned to either a “music” pre-period or a “non-music” pre-period and a “music” post-period or

a “non-music” post-period. After they had studied the words, subjects were given another 6 ½

minutes to recall the words either with or without music present. This period was called the

recall stage. The researchers hypothesized that music would have a detrimental effect on

performance, these expected results were not found. Findings from this study suggested that

students who study while listening to popular music performed at the same level as those without

music present in either condition. Results indicated that women excelled in recall when the

testing condition did not have music present in comparison to men.

Effects of popular music on memorization tasks

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 Sandberg and Harmon: Effects of Popular Music on Memorization Tasks

The purpose of this study was to find whether popular music would have a positive or

negative effect on memory tasks. There are many different perspectives on how background

music and noise affects performance. The current body of research reports mixed results with

some studies reporting positive effects and some reporting negative effects of music on

performance.

Numerous studies have been conducted to test the Mozart effect. The Mozart effect is a

term used to explain the claim that people perform better on tasks when listening to music

composed by Mozart. Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky (1993) indicated that subjects’ performance on

spatial tasks was better while listening to music compared to the silence condition. Due to this

study, many people questioned whether listening to music increases intellectual ability. Other

researchers stated that it is possible that the Mozart effect has very little to do with music. They

postulated that enhanced performance is due to arousal or mood (Thompson, Schellenberg, &

Husain, 2001). Those researchers proposed that musical stimuli that may be enjoyable to that

individual might produce a small improvement in performance on a variety of tasks.

Many studies have emerged from the concept of the Mozart effect. The results of these

studies have been mixed. Ransdell & Gilroy (2001) indicated that background music

significantly disrupted writing fluency while using a computer. The participants in that study

showed signs of slower writing and a decreased writing quality when their writing was

accompanied by background music.

An earlier study found that when students frequently studied to music, a specific type of

music was less likely to impair their performance on reading comprehension tests (Etaugh &

Micheals, 1975). Hillard and Tolin (1975) indicated that if the background music was familiar to

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the subject, they performed better on the given task than when unfamiliar music was present.

Another study argued that the differences were due mainly to individual differences in music

preference (Daoussis & McKelvie, 1986).

Tucker and Bushman (1991) found that rock and roll music had a detrimental effect on

tasks involving mathematical and verbal skills, but it did not have an effect on reading

comprehension tasks. In another study, the researchers found that music that contained speech

had significant negative effects on the participants’ ability to perform tasks (Martin, Wogalter &

Forlano, 1988).

It has also been found that males and females perform differently in the presence of

music when performing various types of tasks (Miller & Schyb, 1989). Although these studies

found different results for gender and the frequency of listening to the type of music presented in

the study, the results still indicated that music helped their performance.

Broadbent (1958) tested the effects of noise on tasks that required complex mental

processing. He showed that noise produces deterioration in performance over time. He also

proposed that noise has a negative effect on later performing of the same activity in silence. This

suggests that there are other factors involved in this phenomenon beyond distraction of attention

from the task.

The irrelevant speech effect indicates that the presentation of speech based irrelevant

sound that is to be ignored by subjects actually impairs their task performance (LeCompte,

1995). The irrelevant speech effect results in performance deficits on many cognitive tasks such

as serial recall, free recall, cued recall, and recognition. Irrelevant speech can cause poor

performance in many everyday situations such as offices, dorm rooms, and other situations

where concentration on tasks is important. One study found words to be more disruptive than

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 Sandberg and Harmon: Effects of Popular Music on Memorization Tasks

tones and nonsense syllables. The researchers suggested that this was due to the semantic

meaningfulness of words (LeCompte, Neely, & Wilson, 1997).

The irrelevant speech effect breaks down the person’s ability to focus attention on a

particular task. This is thought to be due to the irrelevant speech gaining access to the

phonological loop. The phonological loop is a short-term memory store for speech-based

material. This effect is not controllable by the individuals experiencing it. Short-term memory

is dependent on attention paid to to-be-learned items. Even though a person may be focusing on

to-be-learned information, sounds from the environment are registered and organized in the

phonological store (Jones, 1999).

Salame and Baddeley (1987) showed that short-term memory is detrimentally affected by

unattended speech but is not disrupted by unattended sound. This suggests that the speech based

sounds disrupt the phonological loop.

Irrelevant sound disrupts attention and has detrimental effects on performance of

cognitive tasks. Even relatively quiet sound shows this effect. Acoustic change has been shown

to have negative effects on performance where repeated sounds have not been shown to be

disruptive. Non-speech sounds can be disruptive when there is acoustic variation. Irrelevant

sounds produce these effects when stimuli is presented and when it is present during retention.

Habituation has not been shown to occur in the case of irrelevant sound. Memory is highly

vulnerable to the negative effects of irrelevant sound. Irrelevant sound that holds semantic

meaning has been found to disrupt comprehension tasks (Banbury, Macken, Tremblay, &Jones,

2001).

Tolan and Tehan (2002) conducted a study involving irrelevant speech effects on the

immediate cued recall of stimuli. They found that irrelevant speech had adverse effects on cued

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 Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Vol. 3 [2003], Art. 6

recall. They also found that steady-state irrelevant speech had the same detrimental effect on

recall as did changing-state irrelevant speech. This contradicts other literature in the field that

shows that changing-state speech should decrease performance more than that of steady-state

speech. When speech based sound is masked by noise, it becomes less disruptive. This is

thought to be due to the added noise, masking the speech to make it unrecognizable as such

(Ellermeier & Hellbruck, 1998).

Many college students study while listening to music. Earlier research has not provided a

clear and consistent picture of the effect of listening to music on learning. The present study

attempted to determine if studying to popular music would have a detrimental effect on memory.

If music does hinder a student’s ability to study, it would be beneficial for them to have that

information available. It is possible that earlier research did not indicate an accurate picture of

the effect that music has on learning because previous researchers had not taken into

consideration the music people frequently listen to while performing cognitive tasks.

The present study tested the effects of popular music on immediate recall tasks. It was

proposed that because popular music often contains lyrics, it would have a detrimental effect on

performance, as the irrelevant speech effect would predict.

Method

Participants

Participants in this study were 40 introductory psychology students. They received extra

credit for their participation.

Procedure

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 Sandberg and Harmon: Effects of Popular Music on Memorization Tasks

Participants were placed in a testing room. Subjects were given a list of fifty words that

were randomly selected out of the dictionary. They were given 6 minutes and 30 seconds to

study the list of words that were provided. After that time had lapsed, the subjects had 6 minutes

and 30 seconds to write down the recalled list of words. This amount of time had been chosen

because that was the length of time it took to play the two songs that were used in the study. The

subjects were tested in groups of three or fewer.

There were a total of four testing conditions. These conditions consisted of a subject

either studying and being tested while listening to popular music, studying with popular music

and being tested without, studying with no music and being tested with popular music, and a

subject studying and being tested without music present.

The songs that were played in the music condition were “Let Me Blow Your Mind” by

Eve and Gwen Stefani and “What Would You Do” by City High. These songs were selected

because they are a representative sample of popular music chosen from the CD Now 7.

Results

There were no significant differences found between conditions in this study. T-tests

were conducted to find significance values. Recall was not significantly different with or

without music t(17) = 1.239, p = .232, t(11.67) = 1.328, p = .210.

Insert figure 1

There was only one significant finding. Women performed better than men did when

tested without music. The mean recall for women in this condition was 15.5 words while the

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 Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Vol. 3 [2003], Art. 6

mean recall for men was 10.2. A t-test illustrated this t(19) = -2.882, p = .01, t(10.032) = -3.535,

p = .005. This was an unexpected finding.

Insert figure 2

Discussion

The data from this study did not support the hypothesis that music would have a

detrimental effect on memory performance. This may be a result of a number of different

circumstances. One reason could be the lack of sufficient numbers of subjects. Originally, we

expected to obtain data from 120 subjects. We were only able to gather data from 40 subjects

due to lack of participation. Had there been more subjects, it is possible that our hypothesis

would have been supported.

Even though results were not supportive of the hypothesis, subjects made comments that

suggested the hypothesis to be valid. One subject said after being tested in the no music-music

condition, “When the music came on I forgot everything.” This indicates that the memory trace

had been disrupted by the music during the testing condition, as the irrelevant speech effect

would indicate.

There are many additional limitations to this study. At times, the room where the

equipment was stored had been occupied by other researchers. Therefore, testing conditions

could not always be randomly assigned because the equipment needed was not available.

Random assignment is important in these types of studies to gain a representative sample in each

condition. This unfortunate circumstance could not have been predicted early in the study.

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 Sandberg and Harmon: Effects of Popular Music on Memorization Tasks

Students and faculty members often disrupted the study by walking in while testing was

being conducted even when the door was closed. These disruptions may have had an adverse

effect on the results obtained in this study. This could have been prevented by using a room that

could be locked during testing sessions.

During testing conditions subjects developed a lack of interest in the study and wanted to

leave before the 6 ½ minutes had elapsed. Future research could shorten the study and test

interval to decrease the boredom that some subjects may feel that could be affecting the results.

One unexpected finding was that women performed better than men in the no music

testing condition. This result was not dependent on the type of study condition, significant results

were only produced during the testing period without music present. Miller and Schyb (1989)

also showed sex differences on tasks performed when music was present, but their study

indicated that music significantly helped performance. This study did not find that to be the

case.

References

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short-term memory: Phenomena and practical implications. Human Factors, 43, 12-29.

Broadbent, D. E. (1958). Effect of noise on an “intellectual” task. The Journal of the

Acoustical Society of America, 30, 824-827.

Daoussis, L., McKelvie, S. J. (1986). Music preferences and effects of music on a reading

comprehension test for extroverts and introverts. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 62, 283-

289.

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 Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Vol. 3 [2003], Art. 6

Ellermeier, W., Hellbruck, J. (1998). Is level irrelevant in “irrelevant speech”? Effects of

loudness, signal-to-noise ratio, and binaural unmasking. Journal of Experimental

Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 1406-1414.

Etaugh, C., Michals, D. (1975). Effects on reading comprehension of preferred music and

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Fogelson, S. (1973). Music as a distracter on reading test performance of eighth grade students.

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Hilliard, O. M., Tolin, P. (1979). Effect of familiarity with background music on performance

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LeCompte, D. C. (1995). An irrelevant speech effect with repeated and continuous background

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Martin, R. C., Wogalter, M. S., & Forlano, J. G. (1988). Reading comprehension in the

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Miller, L. K., Schyb, M. (1989). Facilitation and interference by background music. Journal of

Music Therapy, 26, 42-54.

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Ransdell, S.E., Gilroy, L. (2001). The effects of background music on word processed writing.

Journal of Experimental Psychology, 17, 141-148.

Rauscher, F.H., Shaw, G.L, & Ky, K.N. (1993). Music and spatial task performance. Nature,

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Salame, P., Baddeley, A. (1987). Noise, unattended speech and short-term memory.

Ergonomics, 30, 1185-1194.

Thompson, W.F., Schellenberg, E.G., & Husain, G. (2001). Arousal, mood, and the Mozart

effect. Journal of Music Therapy, 12, 248-251.

Tolan, G. A., Tehan, G. (2002). Testing feature interaction: Between-stream irrelevant speech

effects in immediate recall. Journal of Memory and Language, 46, 562-585.

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M e a n N u m b e r o f W o r d s R e c a lle d in E a c h T e stin g C o n d itio n

16 1 5 .4 5
Mean Number of Words Recalled

14
1 2 .9 1 2 .8
1 2 .4
12

10

M u sic - M u sic M u sic - N o M u sic N o M u sic - M u sic N o M u sic - N o M u sic

T estin g C o n d itio n

Figure 1: Mean number of words recalled in each testing condition

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M e a n N u m b e r o f W o r d s R e c a lle d in
N o M u s ic T e s tin g C o n d itio n , b y S e x
18

16 1 5 .5
Mean Number of Words Recalled

14

12

1 0 .2
10

M a le F e m a le

Sex

Figure 2: Mean number of words recalled in no music testing conditions for each gender

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