As a University student, I was confident in the belief that listening to music helped me focus. It was only after I spent an entire hour during my Persian exam trying to get an ABBA song out of my head, that I realised the impact music had on my mind, specifically my memory. It’s hardly ever brought to our awareness; how much music interlays our existence. Today, music is more accessible than basic necessities are and it’s important to know the relationship it shares with human cognition and behaviour.
A popular finding of research into music and memory is that music is shown to stimulate parts of the brain. This has been revolutionary for treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Dementia (Guetin, 2009,Van de Winckel et al, 2004). Research indicates that exposure to certain types of music can also enhance short term and long term verbal memory (Balch et al., 1992; Balch and Lewis, 1996), thereby providing certain contextual cues that aid episodic memory (memory of autobiographical events such as birthdays, graduation etc)
Music has displayed qualities of being a strong mood inducer and research shows that positive mood is positively correlated with an individual’s working memory (short term memory) performance. In a study conducted in 2013 (Wang), the beneficial impact of music on working memory performance in older adults was investigated. A group of adults were randomly segregated into two groups, each presented with negative and positive musical clips played in opposite order. Their memory was tested using a digit span and a computerised spatial span test. There was conclusive evidence that the adults showed improved working memory following positive music. This was attributed to increased dopamine (the happy brain chemical) transmission to the frontal lobe, the control centre of an individual’s mood in the brain, that lead to improved working memory (Ashby, Isen, &. Turken, 1999).
While listening to music can lead to better memory, listening to music and consciously doing another task can pose to be a challenge. I was intrigued to read about other studies that challenged the cognitive-capacity hypothesis which essentially states that background music interferes with cognitive tasks. This is because it limits the resources available in the brain for mental processing and focusing at a given point in time. Anna O’Hare conducted a study that aimed at identifying a difference between vocal and instrumental music on verbal memory in children using a sentence recall test (Hare, 2011). In comparison to the silent control group, the experimental group, that was exposed to music, showed no significant improvement in memory performance, but when split into groups exposed to either vocal or instrumental music, the instrumental group outperformed the vocal group. A possible explanation for this difference is attributed to the presence of irrelevant speech in vocal music which influences the part of memory that is responsible for retention of auditory material in working memory. This is why studying with headphones or working actively on a piece of information with lyrical music can ultimately become a major distraction.
A small column in the newspaper isn’t going to be enough to comprehensively understand the nature of the impact of music on memory; however, it is enough to initiate an awareness about it. Next time you plan on concentrating, remember to pause your melody.
*The author can be contacted on Instagram @sincerelysanah
Sanah Thakur
