Effect of Music on Memory Retrieval

Effect of Music on Memory Retrieval

present me before her glorious presence without fault and with great joy, to the only God our savior be glory, majesty, power, and authority through to almighty ALLAH our god, before all ages, now and forever. To my mother who loves me always and keeping me safe and to my father who supports me in doing this and to my sister and brothers who advice me always… Acknowledgement I usually and gratefully acknowlegdes the invaluable assistance rendered by the following persons who in one way or another tremendously helped in the succesful completion of the term paper.

Almighty Allah

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Mrs. Salma M. Macarambon, teacher/adviser for her constructive pieces of advice, generous sharing of knowledge, her willingness, patience and wisdom in her teaching; To my friends Batman for their suggestion and vital assistance in conducting research and for being available on times of trials and computer services; To my family for their full supports on me in my study and who are always concerned; And above all, to the Almighty Allah who deserves all the glory, praises and thanksgiving. Introduction In the early to mid 20th Century, researchers began to extensively study memory.

Since then, there have been tremendous advances in the knowledge of how the mind processes information. The brain is composed of a very complex system of neural networks that transfers information from one section to another. The study of these networks is an ongoing process, because there is still much to learn. From this research, many factors have been found that seem to affect memory. Included in these factors are attention, stress, emotion, music, and aging. This experiment will concentrate on how the factor of music effects memory.

The memory is a mental system that receives, stores, organizes, alters and recovers information from sensory input. Sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory are the three basic types. Information first enters sensory memory, which holds an exact copy of the data for a few seconds. Short-term memory is the next step, and it holds small quantities of information for a brief period longer than sensory memory. Selective attention is utilized at this time to regulate what information is transferred to short-term memory. Unimportant information is removed permanently (Coon, 1997).

Working Memory

Another name for short-term memory is working memory, which describes the thinking and problem solving aspects. Short-term memory, according to psychologist George Miller, can hold a "magic number" of seven (plus or minus two) bits of information. Bits are units of information such as numbers, phrases or words. Information is held in short-term memory by two types of rehearsal. Maintenance rehearsal refers to silently repeating or mentally reviewing information. Elaborative rehearsal connects the new information with existing information (Coon, 1997). Many areas of the brain are used to process information.

However, the hippocampus is the section that transfers information into long-term memory. This type of memory contains all of the presorted important information in a relatively permanent and limitless storage. Long-term memory also organizes information for easy recovery (Coon, 1997). Music has an amazing power to influence man`s emotions and behavior. It has been found to affect and stimulate many different parts of the brain and body. Psychological study of music is based on this reason. Studies have found that music can reduce stress, aid relaxation, alleviate depression, and help store and recall information among other functions.

William Congreve once stated that "music has the charms to soothe the savage beast". Stress is reduced through music by decreasing the amount of the hormone cortisone released in the body. This can be applied to everyday life for stress relief (Music and Stress, 1998). Music therapy is a new intervention that uses "music and musical activities for the purposes of altering behavior and enhancing the everyday existence of people with various types of emotional disturbance". People have been using forms of music therapy since the earliest recorded history. Egyptian priests spoke incantations that supposedly influenced women`s fertility.

Hebrews and Greeks treated physical and mental illness with the playing of music. Zenocrates, Sarpander, and Arien, all of whom were Greeks, were the first to use music therapy as a regular practice. They employed harp music to ease the outbursts of people with mental illnesses (Shapiro, 1969). Nursing homes often hire music therapists. People are likely to feel depressed and grief-stricken when moved away from their homes and families into a facility for strangers to take care of them. Music therapy helps to relieve grief and improve emotional tones and feelings (Shapiro, 1969).

Therapists can also help residents that suffer from Alzheimer`s and dementia, because studies have found that music can improve their memory. This improvement is partly due to the effect music has on increasing the release of certain hormones in the body (Music and Stress, 1998). Carruth (1997) conducted an experiment to find out if music would improve the face-name recognition of nursing home residents with Alzheimer`s. There was a music condition and a no music condition. During the music condition, a therapist sang and played a guitar to a familiar song. The subjects were allowed to join the therapist in singing.

Afterwards, the subjects were given a face-name recognition test. The no music condition received the test in the same manner, except for the singing. Four of the seven participants had a higher mean percent of correct responses during the music condition that during the no music condition. A study conducted at the University of California, Irvine, showed that scores on memory tests of people with Alzheimer`s greatly improved when they listened to Mozart. They recalled shapes and patterns better, for example, than when they were not listening to Mozart (Music Therapy, 2001).

British Psychological Society

At a British Psychological Society Conference in December of 2000, Elizabeth Valentine reported that music promotes memory better than either silence or background noise. Valentine and her colleague selected 23 subjects with dementia to be tested for recall after being exposed to four different types of noise. The four types were no noise, cafeteria noise, familiar music, and novel music. Recall was better with sound than with silence and better with music than with cafeteria noise (Larkin, 2001). As shown, many studies have found that music aids the storage and recall of information in the human memory.

Based on the previous information, the following experiment will examine how music affects the recall of information from the short-term memory of college students. Chapter I Definition of Terms Learning – acquisition of any relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of practice or experience. The act of memorizing the 20 groups of 3-digit random numbers. Memory Retrieval – the act of locating information in memory for use. It is measured by the complete sequential 20 groups of 3 – digit random numbers correctly recalled. Independent Variable – intstrumental music being played while memorizing is done by the experimental group.

Dependent Variable

Dependent Variable – the number of groups of 3 – digit random numbers recalled in the sequence during the retrieval process. Extraneous Variables – anything that operates in the experimental situation in addition to the independent variable. In this case were the noise brought about by teacher’s students coming in and out the experimental room, voices of people talking, and the noise inside the C. R. Music – soft instrumental music played by Kenny G in a saxophone where the tempo is slow, entitled, “Silhouette”, “Uncle Al,” “Going Home,” “Songbird” and “I’ll Never Leave You. ” Intensity – volume is set at #3 on the volume scale. A.

Dictionary Definition Webster dictionary defines “music” as the art or science of harmony of melody, musical score or composition. To make it clear, it is the art of organizing tones into meaningful patterns of sounds Bagar and Biancolli, 1974. Appreciation may then be possible which refers to the force in music which seeks to arouse in the person a love and even evoke musicality (Mursell, 1938) B. Operational Definition Music is found in every known culture, past and present, varying wildly between times and places. Around 50,000 years ago, early modern humans began to disperse from Africa, reaching all the habitable continents.

Consequently Music

Since all people of the world, including the most isolated tribal groups, have a form of music, it may be concluded that music is likely to have been present in the ancestral population prior to the dispersal of humans around the world. Consequently music may have been in existence for at least 50,000 years and the first music may have been invented in Africa and then evolved to become a fundamental constituent of human life. A culture's music is influenced by all other aspects of that culture, including social and economic organization and experience, climate, and ccess to technology. The emotions and ideas that music expresses, the situations in which music is played and listened to, and the attitudes toward music players and composers all vary between regions and periods. "Music history" is the distinct subfield of musicology and history which studies music particularly Western art music from a chronological perspective. Chapter II What is music on memory retrieval? Musical memory refers to the ability to remember music-related information, such as melodic content and other progressions of tones or pitches.

The differences found between linguistic memory and musical memory have led researchers to theorize that musical memory is encoded differently from language and may constitute an independent part of the phonological loop. The use of this term is problematic, however, since it implies input from a verbal system, whereas music is in principle nonverbal. The purpose of this experiment was to see if studying or testing with music affected scores on a memory test. There were four groups in this study. One group had music while studying and testing.

Another had music while studying and no music while testing. The third group had no music while studying but music while testing, and the fourth group had no music during both. Each group consisted of approximately 30 freshman or sophomore level psychology students. The students were all given a memory test, which consisted of a list of 15 words and studied it for two minutes. The groups that had music while studying listened to the song "Sad Eyes" by Enrique Iglesias. After the two minutes were up, the word lists were collected. At the end of the class period, the test was administered.

Sad Eyes

The group that tested with music listened to "Sad Eyes. " A between subjects factorial ANOVA was calculated comparing the memory test scores for subjects who had music during recall or studying. No significant results were found. Several factors, such as the type of test given and the music type, may have contributed to these insignificant results. What is Music? : Solving a Scientific Mystery is a book by Philip Dorrell which explains a new scientific theory about music: the super-stimulus theory. The main idea of the theory is that music is a super-stimulus for the perception of musicality, where musicality" is actually a perceived property of speech. "Musicality" refers to the property of music that determines how "good" it is, how strong an emotional effect it has, and how much we enjoy listening to it. The theory implies that ordinary speech also has this property, in a manner which may vary as a person speaks. The musicality of speech is much more subtle than that of music, but it provides important information which the listener's brain processes without conscious awareness of the processing, in order to derive some information about the internal mental state of the speaker.

This information is applied to modulate the listener's emotional response to speech, and this accounts for the emotional effect of music. What distinguishes the super-stimulus theory from all other serious attempts to explain music scientifically is that it starts from a simple assumption that music perception must be an information processing function, and this assumption results in quite specific explanations of how major aspects of music such as scales, regular beat and harmony are processed in the brain.

It is the first theory to explain the perception of musical scales without a priori assuming the existence of musical scales. The theory has to do this, because it is a theory of music perception as an aspect of speech perception, and musical scales do not occur in normal speech. Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch which governs melody and harmony, rhythm and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation, dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture.

The word derives from Greek mousike; "art of the Muses". The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. Music ranges from strictly organized compositions (and their recreation in performance), through improvisational music to aleatoric forms. Music can be divided into genres and subgenres, although the dividing lines and relationships between music genres are often subtle, sometimes open to individual interpretation, and occasionally controversial.

Within "the arts", music may be classified as a performing art, a fine art, and auditory art. There is also a strong connection between music and mathematics. To many people in many cultures, music is an important part of their way of life. Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as "the harmony of the spheres" and "it is music to my ears" point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to.

John Cage

However, 20th-century composer John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, "There is no noise, only sound. Musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez summarizes the relativist, post-modern viewpoint: "The border between music and noise is always culturally defined—which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus ... By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what music might be. Chapter III How can music affect your life?

Theories of Forgetting

There are two theories of forgetting widely accepted. First is Disuse Theory which suggests that forgetting is due to gradual dissolution or disruption in time of neurophysiological correlates of whatever is learned. Conversely, retention is what is left Buxton, 1991. The other focuses on the learning process when interferences may arise, be it before, during, and after learning. Interference theory states the mechanics for forgetting : one memory is forgotten because another item interferes with the memory of it Edwards, 1972.

Music and Related Findings In a holistic view, educators found the importance of music to the child’s learning curriculum. In education, one encourages the child to use music as a means of expressing a feeling which is difficult to verbalize, simply because of the many values and satisfaction it has to offer. Music is another meaningful aspects of life to study. Musical experiences are worthwhile. All contribute to a child’s growth. They tell that it is, at the same time an art which is related to many areas of life Raebeck and Lawrence, 1972.

Psychological characteristics of the child found to relate to musical experiences include a more logical thinking-reasoning, tendency towards exaggeration – memory, and interest in doing well. Music can serve a purpose. A prime example of this is that music is used to set mood, establish the character of a person in a play, express emotion quickly, and variety, interest and color to the program, and give opportunities for individual and group participation Raebeck and Lawrence, 1972.

Music is mentally stimulating and challenging: it awakens one to a sense of form, order, rhythm, texture, and symbolism. Moreover, deep musical experience is characterized by an alert mind Dunningham, 1989.

Memory and Related Studies

Studies had been conducted like that of the Differential Effect of Success and Failure on Memory Retrieval Tambura, 1992, which exudes that learning is affected by some factors which are emotional in nature, that emotional experiences such as succes and failure have some effects on memory retrieval.

Another is the effect of embarrassment on retention among MSU-College Students Derige, 1988. Her findings suggest that there are psychosocial aspects like embarrassment that have direct bearing on learning. Chapter IV History of music Classical music, as we use it on this site, basically includes thousands  of years of time. This area basically describes the history of classical music. When we speak of classical music, we are talking of the western influence. We aren't talking about the ancient eastern music of the asian continent.

Classical music can be organized in a variety of ways. This section divides  music into six historical periods: Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque,  Classical, Romantic and the Contemporary. Each period is briefly described. and includes a list of important composers, some song files  provided by our generous sponsors, an option to buy some recordings,  and recommended recordings. Also, there is an organized layout which we used  to organize information on this site. We'd like to thank Classical Insites for  helping us acquire sound files and information of these periods.

Most of the  information included in this site was from my notes after taking two years of  music theory in high school. To learn more about any of these time periods,  please contact a music theorist specializing in the specific time period  you would like to know about. Chapter V Advantages and Disadvantages Disadvantages-People who hate a genre of music and condemn other people for liking it. That's gotta be the lamest thing to me. Bashing other people's music. very one has been born with his brain blank he could work with his brain the way he likes but music activates the dou side in us as it draws lines and tracks for our mind and body to work on to make it closer to your brain imagine like u were free to move any where in the 360 degree of space but when u lestin to music u can only see the lines and tracks that music drew for you so every action u do is less performance and we feel that we need to listen to more music to have more lines to walk in even we had all the 360 degree for us from the start A major disadvantage of music in today's society is that a large majority of popular musicians are making and selling their music for no reason other than to make money. I'll define "popular" more clearly- almost anything on a top hits chart, a lot of music played on commercial radio, bands that have their name on walmart t-shirts, etc.

There are of course always exceptions to this, but most of these bands and musicians don't make music because its a way of expressing yourself and communicating with others; they present themselves and their music because they want to make money. Giant record labels aren't signing bands because they think they're really talented and make great music, they're signing bands that will be easily marketed to an audience; bands that will sell the most Cd's downloads, t-shirts, and concert tickets. Luckily, for those of us who can not stand the top 40 hits that get played over and over and over on the radio, there exists independent musicians, bands, labels, radio stations, etc. Chapter VI Effect of music on memory retrieval in your life.

The Seasons Spring Movement

Memory is a mental system that receives, stores, organized, alters and recovers information from sensory input Coon, 1997. Research has shown memory to be affected by many different factors. One of these factors is music, which has been found to stimulate parts of the brain. Many studies have demonstrated that music enhances the memory of Alzheimer`s and dementia patients. Music has also been found to reduce stress, aid relaxation and alleviate depression. This experiment placed 60 subjects into three different conditions based on the independent variable of music. The three types of the independent variable were "The Seasons Spring Movement" by Haydn, Holier Than Thou by Metallica and white noise.

Each group visually studied a picture for 30 seconds with their specific music or noise in the background. After 30 seconds the picture was taken away and the music or noise was turned off. The groups then filled out a questionnaire about their memories for the picture. There was not a significant interaction found between the type of music or noise played and memory recall. However, the white noise group made the least amount of memory errors while the Haydn group made the most. These results contrast a lot of the research on the effects of music on memory. Much research states that music, especially classical, enhances the storage and recall of memory.

There were some limitations to this experiment. Noise outside of the testing area was not controlled for. Also, subjects may have talked to one another about the questionnaire while filling it out. Further research may explain why the results of this experiment contrast much of the published research on the effects of music on memory. Conclusions The study was designed to research whether there is an effect of music as an interference during the time of learning on memory retention. The research sample consisted to website and a book. It tooks a several months to finish this term paper. This topic chosen to me was not being easy to completed but still I strived hard to finished it.

Actually, there are some times that I am being weak for this but for the help of my mother, father, sister, brothers and friends I achieved to finished it.

Bibliography

1. Atkinson, Rita L. , Atkinson, Richard C. , and Hilgard, Ernest R. Introduction to Psychology 8th ed. New York: Hardcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. , 1983.
2. Bagar, Robert and Biacondilli, Louis. The Concert Companion: A Comprehensive Drive to Symphonic Music. London: Mc Graw Hill Book Company, Inc. 1974.
3. Beauchamp, kenneth L. , Bruce, Richarcd L. , and Matheson, Douglas. Current Topics in Experimental Psychology, New York: Dell Publishing, 1985.
4. Broadsky, Howard. The Art of Listening: Developing Musical Perceptions. Harper and Raw, 1970.
5. Chaplin, Edward C. Dictionary of Psychology. 2nd ed. New York: Dell publishing, 1985.

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