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Music and Memory
Can music affect one’s different stages of memory?
Group 3
Kelly Herdman
Aja Hickman
David Kiyosaki
EDP 101 C
23 April 2010
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Introduction
Many people enjoy listening to music as they work. Whether it is a faint, instrumental
tune serving as background music, or a blaring lyrical rock song, music plays a substantial role in
the majority of one’s life. It is known to relax, elicit a type of emotion, and even distract the
listener, but can music aid the listener’s memory? Daniel Levitin argues that “memory affects the
music-listening experience so profoundly…that without memory there would be no music” (p.
167). Could memory have such an impact on music that Levitin’s belief is true? If so, the
relationship of memory and music could be much deeper than we think.
Our group decided to use this question to promote our research for our investigation topic
-- music and memory. Knowing that there are three stages of memory, “encoding, ‘type’ of
storage, and retrieval” (Davis & Palladino, 2010, p. 264), we wanted to research if the three types
of memory associated with these stages could be affected by music. We will explore if the
sensory, short-term, and long-term memories can be hindered, strengthened, or not be affected at
all by music.
Sensory Memory
By Aja Hickman
Sensory memory is defined in our textbook as “a memory or storage of sensory events
such as sights, sounds, and tastes, with no further processing or interpretation” (Davis &
Palladino, 2010, p. 264). Essentially, the sensory memory uses the senses to take in information.
When the information is taken in from an outside stimulus (i.e. an object from the environment),
the sensory memory takes a snapshot of what is tasted, seen, smelled, heard, etc. The snapshot is
taken to use later if the information is converted from the sensory memory to short term memory.
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Information is stored in the sensory memory for a brief period of time before the information is
forgotten and replaced by more information gathered through the senses of other stimuli.
There are two types of the sensory memory that is often researched and are associated
with the topic of this investigation -- iconic memory and echoic memory. Iconic memory is also
referred to as visual memory, or visual perception. Iconic memory is a memory from one’s
vision, hence “the transference of information from the eye to the brain is preserved just long
enough for the eye to move to the next point” (Butterfield, 2010). Because of this transference,
visual stimuli are limited to 0.5 to 1.0 second. Echoic memory is also known as auditory
memory. This type of sensory memory is a memory formed by auditory stimuli, or information
gathered by hearing. Echoic memory lasts much longer than iconic memory. One’s echoic
memory can last from 2 to 3 seconds.
Within the last two years, ScienceDaily reported an experiment of how “sound adds
speed to visual perception” (“BMC Neuroscience,” 2008). The article mentions how there are
two regions of the brain that are responsible for sight and hearing. These two regions are located
in the temporal lobe. Temporal lobes are involved in “forming and recalling memories” (Dubuc,
2002). The right temporal lobe (also known as the right region of the temporal lobe) deals with
visual memories, whereas the left temporal lobe (left region) deals with verbal memories. These
two regions were studied in an experiment with a rhesus macaque monkey. The monkey looked
at a visual stimulus without music and the latency, or time it took for the neurons of the right
temporal lobe to react to the visual stimulus was used to determine how the speed of the reaction
was to the visual stimulus. The experiment continued with the same visual stimulus, which was
complemented by an auditory stimulus. The latency of this trial was also recorded. The
researchers discovered that “the auditory stimulus speeds up the response to the visual stimulus”
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(“BMC Neuroscience,” 2008). This means that some form of auditory stimuli (I say this because
it doesn’t have to be a song recorded by an artist, it could be animal sounds) can help with
understanding a visual stimulus (i.e. the text in a book or images of objects).
In Daniel Levitin’s book, This Is Your Brain on Music (2007), chapter 5, “You Know My
Name, Look Up the Number” discusses a research study by Petr Janata. Petr’s experiment “kept
track of people’s brain waves while they listened to music and while they imagined music” (p.
154). Petr used an EEG (electroencephalogram) that measured electrical activity produced by the
brain as the selected people listened to music and imagined it. Levitin and Janata discovered
from the data that it was difficult to distinguish if the person at a particular time was listening to
music or imagining it. “This suggested that people use the same brain regions for remembering
as they do for perceiving” (p. 154). Petr’s research study results are similar to those of the rhesus
macaque monkey experiment. Whether it’s auditory stimuli encouraging a faster response to
visual stimuli, or how perception and listening can show evidence of similar brain activity, both
of the experiments prove that hearing and perception work together. Therefore, music can affect
one’s sensory memory when iconic and echoic memories are involved.
Short-Term Memory
By Kelly Herdman
Music is seemingly easier to remember than remembering what someone has said. For
instance, the average adolescent is likely to recognize a song they have heard on the radio before
recognizing a lecture heard in a class. Short-term memory could be responsible for this. It is
described as the “memory stage in which information is held in consciousness for 10 to 20
seconds” (Davis & Palladino, 2010, p. 266). Short-term memory is an important stage when
receiving information whether the information is a list of numbers or music. “Musical short-term
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memory is affected by length and rate of musical presentation, and the strategies of the person
trying to remember” (Akiva- Kabiri, 2009). Studies have shown that even in Alzheimer’s
patients, short-term memory is especially adept to storing musical memories, more so than longterm (Menard, MC, & Belleville, 2009).
Although we are able to remember and store music easily, this asset could also impair
other memories stored in the brain. “Many students enjoy studying to music, but studies have
shown that music, whether instrumental or not, can impede on the ability to remember the focus
of the study” (Thibodeaux, 2010). In order to optimize our short-term memory, attention must be
devoted solely to the focus of study, therefore divided attention between listening to music and
focusing on a particular subject would be less effective than focusing on one or the other. Even
certain genres of music were found to be more intrusive than others. For instance, researchers
have found that instrumental music can interfere with the short-term memory, but vocal music is
much more disruptive. This theory appears to be realistic because hearing someone speak would
be much harder to ‘tune out’ than listening to music without lyrics.
“One experiment went very in depth with how short-term memory was affected
depending on the genre of music” (Tammewar, 2009). Shown a series of twenty numbers, each
of the 35 participants listened to rap, country, metal, techno, baroque, and classic rock. However,
the control group didn’t listen to any music. After one minute of listening and studying numbers,
the individual participants were given 30 seconds to write down as many numbers as they could
remember. The results were remarkable; despite the arguments that music inhibits the ability to
utilize short-term memory, the metal, rap, and country groups all scored higher (respectively)
than the control group who were not ‘distracted’ by music. Baroque, techno, and classic rock all
scored below the control group. Participants who listened to classic rock were able to recall only
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15% of the numbers shown to them. “It is possible that participants’ tests adversely affected their
results, but studies from other studies also yielded poor grades in school and poor short-term
memory effects correlated with rock-type music” (Thibodeaux, 2010). It appears that certain
types of music can help or hinder the short-term memory.
Why is music so much more memorable than words? Music seems to have the ability to
distract focus, and remain more permanently in the mind as someone who struggles to remember
the name of an object in front of them. Daniel Levitin argues that music is so memorable because
it maintains its identity through transformations. A sentence can have many different meanings
depending on what word is emphasized and the tone it is said in. Music, however, once created
into a song that is written and heard, remains the same combination of instruments and/or words.
The tempo can be sped up or slowed down, but the song itself remains unchanged. Our textbook
discuses the term ‘chunking.’ This strategy breaks down information into smaller parts, so our
brain can be fooled into taking in more information. Levitin (1999) says that “Words are separate
of each other, but words that are in tune and are in a verse together are much more likely to be
remembered in the order they were presented” (ch. 17). The words in a song can easily be
remembered and used in the short-term memory because the words are ‘chunked’ together into
stanzas and accompanied by music; thus music could help the short-term memory.
Long-Term Memory
By David Kiyosaki
At the end of every semester, finals come around and the library is always packed. Nearly
half of the students there are listening to music as they study for exams. Most professors do not
allow students to listen to their iPod or other mp3 player while working on assignments in class.
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Many teachers and professors claim that the music interrupts the brains train of thought; hence
distracting it from academic work. However, this may not be completely true. Studies show that
there may be a correlation between listening to music and improving our long-term memory.
According to our psychology textbook, long-term memory is the “memory stage that has
a very large capacity and the capability to store information relatively permanently“(Davis &
Palladino, 2010, p. 269). The ability of long-term memory can be seen in this research study:
NASA conducted a study with infants where babies that were around seven to eight
months old were exposed to a certain piece of music once a day for 10 days, and then
they did not listen to it again for two weeks. After this, they were exposed to two pieces
of music and they were significantly more adaptive to the one previously heard (Ilari,
2002).
This is recognized later on in life as well. Brick Street has a 90’s night every Tuesday night right
here in Oxford. Tuesday nights are so popular because everyone can remember the words to the
songs from their childhood. Because long-term memory is the retrieval stage of how the brain
processes information, the ability to retrieve songs from our childhood and sing them almost a
decade later, is a prime example of how powerful our long-term memory is, especially as it
relates to music. Parents still listen to the same music that they did when they were young
because they remember all the lyrics and beats also. Music is something that one takes with them
no matter what.
Research has proven a strong connection between memory improvement and listening to
classical music. According to an article by Memory Improvement Central (2010), the same part
of the brain is utilized when processing classical music (especially that without lyrics) as it is
when using “spatial abilities.” Spatial abilities are those that help one build a puzzle and organize
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shapes, etc. When one can organize information in a way that they feel makes sense, they will
remember it. It is becoming more and more common of a practice to have babies listen to Mozart
and other classical music growing up because it is perceived that it can improve one’s memory in
the long term. It is not suggested that listening to Mozart or any other classical composer will
make you remember everything forever, but it is merely said that it can help.
Not all research has given out positive reviews on the correlation between listening to
music and long-term memory benefits. For example, according to Wanda Thibodeaux, serial
recall is significantly hindered when listening to any type of music, especially that with words in
it. An interesting finding by Thibodeaux was that even when the instrumental version of a song
is playing, if the person that is listening to it can associate words with it, the music has the same
effect that it would even if the lyrics aren’t actually there. This is another example of how music
and memory are correlated; when one hears the beat of a song, the lyrics that go with it are
automatically put into one’s brain. Levitin suggests that, “One of the reasons we are able to
recognize melodies is because the memory system has formed an abstract representation of the
melody that is pitch invariant, loudness invariant, and so on” (2007). This explains that there is a
unique part of our memory that is specific to remembering music that is different than any other
part of our memory.
Conclusion
All in all, music proves to be very memorable to the brain. Through our research, our
group discovered that modern science shows that music can be easily read (i.e through lyrics or
the notes of a song) and remembered, sometimes more so than what students are trying to focus
on. We discovered that through sensory memory, two senses work together -- hearing and sight
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as we listen to music. We are easily able to detect musical rhythms, and through short-term
memory we are able to memorize words or notes in the pattern they are presented. Those words
and rhythms are then committed to long-term memory where they remain and can instantly be
retrieved. This is proven as we can sing along to songs from our childhood. We all find it
surprising how memorable music is to one’s ears and brain. Upon further investigation of our
own minds, the research we found was true when we applied it to our own life experiences. We
are all able to recall lyrics from songs we were introduced to in elementary school, but not one of
us are able to remember a conversation with someone from that time period in our lives. When
discussing the main theme of his book, Levitin (2007) says, “This is the story of how brains and
music co-evolved -- what music can teach us about the brain, what the brain can teach us about
music, and what both can teach us about ourselves” (p. 12). Through our investigation question,
our group was able to explore all of these aspects highlighted throughout Levitin’s book. We
learned enough information from Levitin, Davis, and Palladino to apply and analyze our own
understanding of music and memory.
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Works Cited
Akiva-Kabiri, L, Vecchi T, Granot R, Basso D, & Schon D. (2009). Memory for Tonal Pitches:
A Music Length Effect Hypothesis. Retrieved from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19673790
BMC Neuroscience (2008, August 12). Sound Adds Speed to Visual Perception. ScienceDaily.
Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080811200557.htm
Butterfield, S. (2010). What is Iconic Memory? Retrieved from http://www.wisegeek.com/whatis-iconic-memory.htm
Davis, F. S & Palladino, J. J (2010). Psychology (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Dubuc, B. (2002). McGill. The Brain. Retrieved from
http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_01/d_01_cr/d_01_cr_ana/d_01_cr_ana.html
Howes, B. M. (2007). Human Memory: Structures and Images. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications.r
Ilari, B., Polka, L., & Costa-Giomi, E. (2002). Infants long-term memory for complex music
[Abstract]. Acoustical Society of America Journal, 5. Retrieved from
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002ASAJ..111.2456I.
Levitin, J. D. Music, Cognition and Computerized Sound: An Introduction to Psychoacoustics.
Retrieved from http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/levitin/pubspages/memory.html
Levitin, J. D. (2007). This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. New
York, NY: Penguin Group.
Memory Improvement Central: Improve Short Term. (2010). Improving Memory with Music.
Retrieved from http://memoryimprovementcentral.com/improving-memory-music.
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Menard, M.C, & Belleville. (2009). Musical and Verbal Memory in Alzheimer's Disease: A
Study of Long-Term and Short-Term Memory. Retrieved from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19398148
Tammewar, G. (2009). The Effect of Different Types of Background Music on Short-Term
Memory. Retrieved from www.usc.edu/CSSF//History/2009/Projects/S0315.pdf
Thibodeaux, M. W. (2010). The Effects of Instrumental Music on Short Term Memory. Retrieved
from http://www.ehow.com/list_5795774_effects-music-short-term-memory.html