Effects of BackGround Music on Phonological Short-Term Memory Essay

Improving recall has been the goal of many scientific studies (Higbee, 2001; Lachman, Weaver, Bandura, Elliot, & Lewkowicz, 1992). As a result, a debate surfaced on the best method to achieve this goal. This study chose to focus on only two methods, emotional state and emotionally arousing words. One’s emotional state or mood is important to consider when exploring memory, because mood affects one’s recall of information (Happiness-Levine & Burgess, 1997; Thaut & l’Etoile, 1993). Music, depending on the type, can help induce or change one’s mood (Rickard, 2012). This is important because, music is apart of many of people’s daily lives. Students, especially, listen to music while they study a task that relies on one’s memory. Beyond just exploring mood, this study wanted to look at what type of word is best remembered. Previous research (Doerksen & Shimamura, 2001; LaBar & Phelps, 1998; Zimmerman & Kelley, 2010) found that people tend to recal l and remember emotional words better than neutral non-emotional words. Building upon these findings is important because, if certain types of words were confirmed as inherently memorable then these words would be powerful. They could be used as powerful tools for writing memorable speeches, lectures, and advertisements. One’s mood working in conjunction with emotional words, could lead to effortless increase in one’s own ability to recall information A recent study by Ferguson and Sheldon (2013) looked at inducing positive emotional states in their participants using classical music. In their study, participants listened to either 12 minutes of an upbeat â€Å"hedonically positive† classical music piece or a slow â€Å"hedonically ambiguous† classical music piece. Their results showed that participant... ...ompany. LaBar, K. S., & Phelps, E. A. (1998). Arousal-mediated memory consolidation: Role of the medial temporal lobe in humans. Psychological Science, 9(6), 490-493. Lachman, M. E., Weaver, S. L., Bandura, M., Elliot, E., & Lewkowicz, C. J. (1992). Improving memory and control beliefs through cognitive restructuring and self-generated strategies. Journal of Gerontology, 47(5), P293-P299. Salamà ©, P., & Baddeley, A. (1989). Effects of background music on phonological short-term memory. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 41(1), 107-122. Thaut, M. H., & de l'Etoile, S. K. (1993). The effects of music on mood state-dependent recall. Journal of Music Therapy, 30(2), 70-80. Zimmerman, C. A., & Kelley, C. M. (2010). â€Å"I’ll remember this!† Effects of emotionality on memory predictions versus memory performance. Journal of Memory and Language, 62(3), 240-253.