What are the effects of music on intelligence and memory?
Group 7:
Kevin Duvall
William Feuerbacher
Katy Martinez
Seth Vander
Daniel Whitehead
EDP 101 C
One question that scientists have been trying to answer for decades is how music affects memory and the learning process. An answer to this question could hold potential academic success for students everywhere hoping to find an edge to studying. In order to answer this question, one must first know the definition of music and the basic ways in which memory work. Next, one must understand the basic principles that allow scientific research to be reliable and be considered factual. In order to say how music affects memory, it is important to look at how different genres of music affect the learning process. This can be done by seeing how well test subjects remember information while listening to various kinds of music. Through detailed information of what makes music what it is, how the human mind forms memories, and the overall findings that scientists have discovered one can make a connection to music’s affects on memory and learning. Although summarizing the findings of hundreds of scientists would be impossible, one can do their best to decide what the most reliable information is and make predictions and conclusions based on knowledge of this vast and still somewhat unknown area of the scientific world.
Katy Martinez: What is Music?
Music as a whole can be a difficult and abstract concept. It varies among nations, countries, cultures, religions, etc and is unique to individuals. Likewise, the genres and groups that music is classified into, each contain characteristics individualizing it from other music types. Music can be defined in many ways, entailing “vocal or instrumental sounds” creating “emotional expression” and composed of “rhythm, melody, and sometimes harmony,” (Encyclopedia Britannica 2008) and even simply a “collage of sounds,” (Levitin 2006).Others can define music in a far simpler way, as being merely a sound or series of sounds like the wind or birds chirping. There are many genres and types of music. In fact there are hundreds, but common ones in the United States especially include classical, instrumental, popular, hip hop, rap, country, rock, salsa, and many others. Each of these uses various tools and instruments, different beats, tones, some use words or various sounds, all of which create the various genres and types of music.
Music can be used in many ways: rituals, ceremonies, important events, etc. It is used as a form of expression. It is used in advertising, psychotherapy, and geriatrics because of its ability to strike at individual’s emotions and influence thoughts and behaviors (Encyclopedia Britannica 2008). Music is estimated to be used in about 75% of broadcasted advertising and has 6 purposes: entertainment, memorability, structure/continuity, lyrical language, targeting, and authority establishment (Huron 1989). Therefore, music is believed to influence people’s thoughts and perceptions, touching their feelings and emotions, and affecting their behavior and as some believe intellectual development as well.
Kevin Duvall: Music’s Effects on the Brain
Listening to music has many different affects on the human brain. This is mainly because of the fact that listening to music involves nearly every region and neural subsystem of our brain. Since there is no single region of the brain dedicated to music, different regions handle different aspects of music and other regions even bring together this information our brains process due to the music we hear. A good example of this would be the language centers found in the temporal and frontal lobes, one allows us to listen to lyrics while the other helps us to recall the rest of the lyrics (Levitin 86). Just about every effect listening to music has on us, we do not even realize many of these, uses a different part of the brain.
A major part of the brain that listening to music has a large effect on is the limbic system, which is a group of structures that help to produce emotions and memory. The limbic system is basically our emotional brain. It allows us to experience countless emotions including rage, pain, fear, sorrow, joy, and pleasure (Goodenough 132).
One reason why music has such a large effect on the limbic system is because of all of the emotions different types of music can make a person feel. Structures in the limbic system that music has an effect on are the hippocampus and the amygdala, which both are involved with many aspects of music including the memories involved with the music, following along with the music, and the emotions brought on by it(Levitin 87).
Our brains can handle all of the different things triggered by music simultaneously because it is what is known to be a parallel processing machine (Levitin 88). Although the brain can do so much, it does have a few difficulties in identifying sounds and music. First of all, as information arrives at receptors in the brain it is undifferentiated and ambiguous and seldom complete (Levitin 105). The trouble with this is that the brain has to complete the sounds it does not get fully which can be very difficult and the brain can do it incorrectly creating an illusion of what the sounds really were.
One part of the brain that everybody knows is the cerebrum, which plays a huge role in music. The cerebrum coordinates skilled movement sequences (Davis & Palladino 70). This means that all of the movements involved with music, whether it be dancing or actually playing music with an instrument. While performing music, the motor cortex and sensory cortex provide tactile feedback to let your brain know if your movements are correct and visual cortex to enable you to read sheet music (Levitin 86). Other than the cerebellum, another part of the brain that plays a huge role would have to be the temporal lobe. It is basically the center for all of our memory. Music has an effect on our memory in many different ways. Everything from recalling lyrics to associating music with memories from our past has to do with the all important temporal lobe.
Seth Vander: Types of Music Affecting the Brain Negatively
Music affects the brain and creates a reaction when we study or are in a certain situation. Rock, Rap, and Country all create different responses in brain activity. While studying, music helps or hurts the memorization of the subject being studying. Due to the fact that rap, rock, and country have words, certain beats, and certain lines that are easy to remember, affect our studying habits in a negative manner. Especially if you know all of the words in the song then you are stuck singing the song instead of focusing on the definitions or notes. The words of other music will interfere with the reading of other materials by mixing up words and focusing on the lyrics instead of the reading material. Music with no words like Classical will not interfere with the absorption of materials (Kirkweg).
Music also makes us act a certain way. Music that has violent terms or cursing can create a response, changing our mood to angry and wanting to do something violent. Music that is screaming and head banging can also make us violent in ways where we want to hurt people. Music that is upbeat and has a good rhythm making us dance and move our body to the flow. Music that talks about a breakup or a death puts us in a depressed mood. Music that has good lyrics and catchy lines makes us want to sing along with the band our artist pretending we were a professional vocalist. Music that has good instrumental music behind the vocals makes us want to tap our feet and hands to the beat and sing along with the instruments. Music changes the mood frequently and we tend to listen to music according to our mood depending on the situations that happened in the day. If something made you angry, you would listen to hard rock or rap that is angry music. If you got a good grade you would want to listen to something happy like country or hip-hop. If somebody passed away in your family or you ended a relationship then you listen to rock ballads or sad country songs. If you wanted to study then classical music is the choice (Kirkweg).
Daniel Whitehead: Research Findings
In order for the experiments that test how music affects learning, it is imperative the experiment follows proper steps in order to prevent bias in the results. If the results can be found to be biased, then the conclusions that the experiment yields cannot be fully trusted. The sample size must be large enough and the same test must be performed on every subject. If the sample size is too small, the results could be considered inconclusive due to the possibility that the insufficient number of subjects randomly provided that same results. If the test is not uniform for all subjects, it cannot be clear as to watch is causing the subjects to give the results they are giving. Finally, a statistical ANOVA test must be performed on the data to ensure that the results that have been obtained cannot be considered unusable.
One group of psychologists tested the effects of music on human memory and what their results yielded. The experiment “The Effects of Music on Memory” conducted by Sara B. Kirkweg. Kirkweg studied 60 students out of 5,000 at Missouri Western State College. Each student was be randomly assigned to one of three conditions. The conditions, based on the independent variable of background sound, were white noise, classical music by Haydn, and heavy metal music by Metallica. After the subjects were seated, they were asked to visually study a picture projected on a screen at the front of the room for 30 seconds. The independent variable for that condition was activated, also. At the end of the 30 seconds, the picture was taken away and the independent variable was deactivated. Subjects were then asked to answer the questionnaire about the picture they observed. The data was then collected and recorded (Kirkweg).
In order to tests their results, Kirkweg conducted a three by two ANOVA test. The test showed that a significant number of students listening to white music while viewing the picture had fewer false memories than the other two groups. The group listening to Haydn had the highest number of false memories (Kirkweg).
Although this is only one of the many experiments that have been conducted on this experiment, it is important to understand what might have provided biased information. One possible source of error would be that the subjects did not adequately cover the desired test population. Since all subjects were students, this test would be biased to test the effect of music on the memory of people of all ages throughout the United States. The population could have also been too small to yield significant results that could not be considered random. Since a questionnaire was involved, it is also possible that the questions were not written is a completely subjective and unbiased manner.
William Feuerbacher: Mozart Effect
In 1993, a physicist by the name of Gordon Shaw studied the effects of classical music on college students’ brains. With help from a former concert cellist named Frances Rauscher, the two concluded that the college students experienced a temporary enhancement of spatial reasoning after being subjected to ten minutes of Mozart. Additionally, the two speculated that memory could be enhanced by listening to classical music as well. Four years later, in 1997, the two announced that they had, “scientific proof that piano and singing instruction are superior to computer instruction in enhancing children's abstract reasoning skills.” (Carroll) In their experiment they had three groups of preschoolers. One group received private piano lessons, while another was given private computer lessons, and the last group receiving no special training at all. Shaw and Rauscher claim that their findings indicated that, “Those children who received piano/keyboard training performed 34% higher on tests measuring spatial- temporal ability than the others. These findings indicate that music uniquely enhances higher brain functions required for mathematics, chess, science and engineering.” (Carroll) However, efforts in 1993 to recreate the college student experiment and efforts in 1999 to recreate both experiments all lead to failure. When questioned, Shaw and Rauscher claimed that their findings were being distorted and that they merely suggested that when listening to classical music the brain fires patterns of neurons, which are responding to specific frequencies. (Carroll) Skeptics agree that this claim is far different than the two researcher’s initial discoveries. Yet despite the lack of evidence and proof that the Mozart Effect worked, these findings spread to become very popular amongst parents, during a time of academic uncertainty in the United States. (Krakovsky) As the findings spread they became even more distorted until parents believed they had a way of making their children smarter. It got to a point where,
"People were less and less likely to talk about the Mozart Effect in the context of college students who were the participants in the original study, and they were more likely to talk about it with respect to babies…(even though) Not only had babies never been studied, but the original 1993 experiment had found only a modest and temporary IQ increase in college students performing a specific kind of task while listening to a Mozart sonata.” (Krakovsky)
Despite all the evidence against the Mozart Effect, it seems that it is here to stay, frowned upon by researchers but embraced by parents.
It has been a commonly held belief that listening to music, in particular classical music, will enhance one’s ability to study and to remember and later recall information. Such information would appear beneficial to students and also to parents hoping to better enable their child’s scholastic success. However, there has been evidence to suggest otherwise. Difficulties arise in the tests, which can always hold errors that can make their results questionable. This theory relating music and memory and learning cannot be completely validated until further research is done. However, the myth, although not backed by science or its leaders, still remains a commonly held belief by parents and students and continues to circulate even today.
Works Cited
Carroll, Robert. "Mozart Effect." 2006. Scepdic.com. 22 Apr 2008
<
Davis, S. F. & Palladino, J. J. (2007). Psychology (5th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Huron, David. (1989). “Music in Advertising: An Analytic Paradigm.” [Electronic Version] Musical Quarterly, 73:4
Kirkweg, Sara B (2001). The Effects of Music on Memory. MissouriWesternState College: Department of Psychology. <
Krakovsky, Marina. "Dubious 'Mozart Effect' remains music to many Americans' ears." 02 Feb 2005. Stanford Report, StanfordUniversity. 22 Apr 2008 < service.stanford.edu/news/2005/february2/mozart-020205.html>
Levitin, D. J. (2006). This is your brain on music: The science of a human obsession. New York, NY: Dutton.
“Music.” (2008). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April22, 2008, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online:
1