I have planned to perform an experiment... on the students and staff of BASIS Phoenix. It will take place over several weeks starting in April and will consist of multiple trials that measure memory recall. I will be using an online memory game to test the participants while they listen to different genres of music, or no music at all.
At this point I have narrowed down the genres to classical, rap, hip-hop, electronic dance music (EDM), and hard rock, as well as the no music control. I am not sure what the outcome of the experiment will be, but I am hypothesizing the classical or no-music treatments will yield the highest memory scores because they are less distracting and allow for better focus.
I think in terms of strictly long-term memory, the outcome would be different. Music can be used to trigger declarative long-term memory, such as in the memorization of certain facts such as words or items after the span of a few minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even longer.
I might have to conduct another experiment.
Very cool ideas Anila, I'm just wondering what led you to chose those specific genres of music for your experiment?
ReplyDeleteI wanted a wide range of popular genres that people actually listen to while they read, study, or work. While these options do not cover all genres, for the sake of time and efficiency, I decided to limit the types of music to these.
DeleteWill you also survey these students beforehand to find out their music preferences for studying (do they like to work with no music, classical music, EDM, etc.)?
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a good question that actually poses quite a challenge. Have people already been conditioned to learn, work, and memorize best under certain music conditions, or do different people work best listening to different music genres based on likes/tastes/preferences? This could be its own experiment.
DeleteHowever, in the case of this survey, it is not relevant and I will not be surveying people beforehand to find their music preferences. This is because I am measuring short term recall at a quick pace (within seconds). In cases regarding long-term memory, music can often be used to trigger the facts and information initially learned while listening to that music, but in this case, where the recall must be immediate, this does not apply.
There is quite a variance between music even with a specific genre, are there specific aspects of the songs you are looking for? For example, different EDM or Hip-Hop songs could be considered vastly different in terms of how harsh or aggressive they are, some sub-genres of EDM even mirror a modern classical music feel.
ReplyDeleteHey Kyle, yes, because songs even in the same genre can be quite varied, I chose examples that most generally reflected their own genre. With a survey like this, it is quite difficult to remove all possible confounding variables, but I did my best to choose songs that were clear and typical representatives of their genre.
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