Description
Mnemonic devices and jingles paired with a musical melody have long been used as study skills for students to remember the capitals of the United States and other facts, as well as aiding adults in memorizing grocery lists, reminding themselves of English grammar rules, and various other tasks. Though this perceived phenomenon has been recognized by previous studies, research is mixed on the effectiveness of utilizing music in order to improve learning and memory. In the current study, we tested the effects of unfamiliar and familiar melodies on the memorization of unrelated word lists compared to a spoken control condition. Participants heard word lists with two-syllable words either spoken, sung to a familiar or unfamiliar melody. After hearing each list, they were asked to freely recall the words in any order and were then asked to complete an old-new recognition task. We found that participants performed best in the spoken word condition and worst in the familiar melody condition, suggesting that adding melodies to the word lists diverted attentional resources away from the memorization task. Our results show that at least for short-term recall, the colloquial belief of music aiding memory does not hold true.
Melodies Are Not a Useful Mnemonic Cue for Immediate Word Recall
Mnemonic devices and jingles paired with a musical melody have long been used as study skills for students to remember the capitals of the United States and other facts, as well as aiding adults in memorizing grocery lists, reminding themselves of English grammar rules, and various other tasks. Though this perceived phenomenon has been recognized by previous studies, research is mixed on the effectiveness of utilizing music in order to improve learning and memory. In the current study, we tested the effects of unfamiliar and familiar melodies on the memorization of unrelated word lists compared to a spoken control condition. Participants heard word lists with two-syllable words either spoken, sung to a familiar or unfamiliar melody. After hearing each list, they were asked to freely recall the words in any order and were then asked to complete an old-new recognition task. We found that participants performed best in the spoken word condition and worst in the familiar melody condition, suggesting that adding melodies to the word lists diverted attentional resources away from the memorization task. Our results show that at least for short-term recall, the colloquial belief of music aiding memory does not hold true.
Comments
Faculty Mentor: Laura Getz