Method
Participants
The participants in this experiment consisted of 16 undergraduate college students at a four year school; there were nine females and seven males. The average age for these participants was 21.5 years old, with a standard deviation of 2.3 years old. They were not compensated for their time because this study was a required class experiment. The participants all had normal to corrected hearing and had normal to corrected vision. They all were capable of reading and writing on their own with no special accommodations, and had the ability to cognitively recall events.
Apparatus (Materials/Stimuli)
There were several materials that were used during this experiment. College-ruled loose-leaf paper was used for the participants to take the test on. A number two pencil was used to take the test. The program PowerPoint, by Microsoft was used to display the list of words. A projector and white board were used to display the PowerPoint. A flat desk with a chair connected to it was used for the participants to sit in while they were presented the PowerPoint, as well as to take the test on. An HP ENVY laptop was used to connect to the projector to display the PowerPoint, as well as for the music to be obtained from. The music was played from a Beats by Dr. Dre Beatbox Portable speaker.
Experimental Design
This experiment was a within-subjects design. The manipulated variable was the music the participant listened to. The participants were randomly assigned into two separate groups. Group A listened to the Piano Sonata No. 16 in C, K. 545, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart while being shown, and told to memorize a list of words. Group B was shown the same list of words and was told to memorize them, but sat in sil...
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Results
The average test score for Group A was 92.25 with a standard deviation of 2.92. Group B had an average test score of 84.88 with a standard deviation of 3.34. Based on these results, it shows that there was a significant effect of background music on the test score, where t(1,7) = 2.948 > 2.145, p < 0.005. See Figure 1.
Works Cited
Jones, M.H., West, S.D., & Estell, D.B. (2006). The Mozart effect: Arousal, preference, and spatial performance. Psychology Of Aesthetics, Creativity, And the Arts, S(1), 26-32.
Roth, R. A., & Smith, K.H. (2008). The Mozart effect: Evidence for the arousal hypothesis. Perceptual And Motor Skills, 107(2), 396-402.
Shih, Y., Huang, R., & Chiang, H. (2009). Correlation between work concentration level and background music: A pilot study. Work: Journal Of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation, 33(3), 329-333.
His experiment consisted on observing the different reaction times on a number of identifying processes, based on the interference demonstrated on the Stroop experiment (Windes 1968). Unlike the color identification in the Stroop experiment, this experiment resembles more to the experiment conducted in class, as it matched short words with number. The experiment yield results that expressed a faster reaction times to the words. This experiment showed that the effect observed in Stroop does not belong only to color identification but other features, like small words and
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as he is generally known, was baptized in a Salzburg Cathedral on the day after his birth as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus. The first and last given names come from his godfather Joannes Theophilus Pergmayr, although Mozart preferred the Latin form of this last name, Amadeus, more often Amadé, or the Italiano Amadeo, and occasionally the Deutsch Gottlieb. Whatever the case may be, he rarely - if ever - used Theophilus in his signature. The name Chrysostomus originates from St. John Chrysostom, whose feast falls on the 27th of January. The name Wolfgang was given to him in honor of his maternal grandfather, Wolfgang Nikolaus Pertl.
The idea of the Mozart effect began in 1993 with a study conducted by Rauscher, Shaw & Ky. This study involved 36 university students taking three different IQ spatial reasoning tasks and for each test used either Mozart’s sonata for two pianos in D major and relaxation music was played, silence was also used. The results of this experiment showed that students who had listened to the music of Mozart had better results for the spacial reasoning tests in comparison to silence or relaxation music. The results also showed that the impact of Mozart’s music was only temporary and only lasted for 10-15 minutes. Overall this study was very basic and had numerous flaws such as the sample size and also the variety of tests used to look at the impact of music (Rauscher, Shaw & Ky, 1993). In 1997 Don Campbell’s book The Mozart effect popularised the claim that music makes children smarter. This book created a public interest in music and brain development. The book uses Rauscher’s experiment as an example of what Mozart’s music can do which in this experiment shows a temporary increase in spatial reasoning, this however was misinterpreted by the public as an increase in IQ. The popularisation of the...
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was an influential and prolific composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, Austria, Mozart showed remarkable musical talent at a young age and composed his first symphony at the age of eight. He traveled extensively throughout Europe, gaining recognition and patronage from various aristocrats. Mozart's compositions encompassed a wide range of genres, including symphonies, concertos, chamber music, operas, and choral music. He played a significant role in the development of classical music, bridging the gap between the Baroque and Classical periods.
Scientists and skeptics have different beliefs about the benefits of the Mozart Effect. Scientists found that Mozart “enhanced synchrony between the neural activity in the right frontal and left tempoparietal cortical areas of the brain,” and that this effect continued for “over 12 minutes” (Rauscher & Shaw, 1998, p. 839). Based on these results, Leng and Shaw speculated that “listening to Mozart could be stimulating the neural firing patterns in the parts of the cerebral cortex responsible for spatial-temporal skills, which subsequently enhances the spatial-temporal abilities that are housed in those parts of the cortex”[Dowd]. However nonbelievers suggest that the research is incomplete and misleading. The Irvine study that launched the phenomenon has been widely criticized. The Startling results announced by the initial paper were misleading. First, the researchers claimed that the undergraduates improved on all three spatial-reasoning tests. But as Shaw later clarified, the only enhancement came from one task—paper folding and cutting. Further, the researchers presented the data in the form...
There were some extraneous variables that were found while conducting this experiment. One extraneous variable was that the test subjects knew that they were being tested, so they could have focused more on getting their best score on the typing test rather than letting the music influence their score. Another extraneous variable was that the fifteen test subjects sat at different tables with them all a different distance from the CD player. Also, each song was originally recorded at a different volume, so even though each song was played at the same volume on the CD player, they were all playing at different
Vaidya, Geetanjali. "Music, Emotion and the Brain." Serendip. N.p., 2004. Web. 7 Jan 2012. .
In the first experiment participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups. The first group would read the passage on red paper and test on red paper, the second group read the passage on red paper and test on green paper, the third read the passage on green paper and test on green paper, and the last group read the passage on green paper and test on red paper. The second experiment was done with all new participants. In this experiment, the same passage was used and same time limit on studying and testing time. However in this experiment, participants were randomly assigned to five different groups. The groups represented what color of paper the test was printed on: red, blue, green, yellow, and pink. Students were given the material on white paper and tested on their color group paper.
It can be proven, through literary research and personal experiences, that music has a positive effect on learning and memory. It can be concluded that these positive effects have an impact on patients with Alzheimer’s, on the motor skills and auditory memory of mentally disabled children, on students attempting to remember subject manner that they are learning, and on the affectivity of advertisements. On a personal note, music has facilitated my ability to remember things, both positive and negative, a number of times. For example, in high school I memorized the days of the week in French by singing them along with a tune that was already familiar to me. I have also had multiple experiences in which I remember things that I do not want to remember such as advertisements and negative experiences because they were accompanied with specific music. Despite the miniscule negative effects of music on memory, the powerful ability of music to trigger memory production and recall is undeniably beneficial. The profound effect of music on memory and learning makes music a great tool for helping people who want to improve cognitive function, whether they need to receive treatment for a mental disease or learn new information.
In the meta-analysis “Music: A Link Between Cognition and Emotion” Carol L. Krumhansl dissects the emotional impact of music and how the structure of it can alter the emotions that are expressed. Krumhansl starts by throwing out multiple theories of why emotions are tied to music and finds that the notion of musical tension and the expectation surrounding it is the answer to what effects human emotion. Gathering information from multiple studies including some of her own work, Krumhansl concludes that tempos, dynamics, pitch, and note density play major parts in attributing to creating musical tension. Tension is apparent in all emotional types of music, but it takes its form in different ways depending on the selected emotion. The tension of a song is created by the expectation of the listener. Once the expectation is fulfilled, the tension
Analyze the construction of Mozart as a cultural icon “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Born in Salzburg under the Holy Roman Empire, is one of the Europe’s greatest composes in the romantic period” (Rushton 1). Without a doubt, I believe that the piano, more than any other music instruments, had a special place in his heart. He is most prolific with music pieces by the piano (Rushton 15). According to my topic “Analyze the construction of Mozart as a cultural icon”, the most important part is that why and how Mozart could be remembered by people. As we known, the tendency of music today is more like Pop music, not classical music.
"The Mozart Effect." Index Page - PositiveHealth.com - United Kingdom. Web. 24 Feb. 2010. .
Listening to music releases dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is known not only for improving mood but also increasing motivation and emotional stamina. But the benefits that come from listening to music affect more than just the way we feel. Studies have shown that when listening to the right style of music at the right decibel level, students have been able to concentrate better. For studying purposes, this mainly applies to classical music. Many school teachers and professors argue that music is simply distracting, or so stimulating that it inhibits a student’s ability to focus. However, when classical music has few words, or as is often found, few English words, the mind isn’t as easily distracted by the meaning or idea of the song. In fact, what is sometimes interpreted as chaotic in classical music can provide a high enough level of exertion for your brain to comprehend, that it stimulates high l...