Music Picks

In preparation for my experiment in April, I have designed six surveys. Survey number one is the control, where the test will be taken in silence. Survey number two has the classical music treatment. The participants will listen to Mozart's well known Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K 525 Allegro. Survey number three features pop music, represented by Bruno Mars' 24K Magic (the clean version of course). Number four is hip-hop/rap with the song Put On by Young Jeezy featuring Kanye West. Number five showcases rock music with Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild, and finally survey six has electronic dance music (EDM) represented by Marshmello's Ritual featuring Wrabel.

All of these songs were chosen with the intent to best represent their respective genre of music.

Because different types of music stimulate the brain differently, it should be interesting to see how certain genres might impact immediate visual memory recall. Some music stimulates the motor cortex, causing us to dance, some stimulates the visual cortex, allowing us to conjure up images, and music with words trigger language centers in the frontal and temporal lobes. These multiple ways in which music affects us may ultimately affect our memory as well. More on that soon.

More on the Experiment

I would like to talk more about the experiment I plan to conduct before I begin in April.

The entire process will span roughly three weeks, possibly more, and will consist of six surveys. Each survey is structurally identical, but features a different genre of music. I ask the introductory questions: 1)What is your age, 2)If you are in school, what is your grade level, and 3)How do you identify. Then, a link included in the survey will send the participants to the memory game they will be playing, and they only play it once. Survey number one will be the control without music, however for surveys two through six, I will play a song from a certain genre of music throughout the room for the participants to listen to while they play the memory game. Finally, question four on the survey requests their score on the game. It is roughly a five minute process. Quick and easy!

The people participating in this experiment are the BASIS Phoenix AP psychology classes, as well as the BASIS Phoenix faculty and staff. I hope this experience will be both fun for them and yield interesting results for me. I guess we will see.