Optimizing song retention through the spacing effect

Joel J Katz,Momo Ando,Melody Wiseheart

doi:10.1186/s41235-021-00345-7

Joel J Katz, Momo Ando + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00345-7

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Abstract

The spacing effect refers to the improvement in memory retention for materials learned in a series of sessions, as opposed to massing learning in a single session. It has been extensively studied in the domain of verbal learning using word lists. Less evidence is available for connected discourse or tasks requiring the complex coordination of verbal and other domains. In particular, the effect of spacing on the retention of words and music in song has yet to be determined. In this study, university students were taught an unaccompanied two-verse song based on traditional materials to a criterion of 95% correct memory for sung words. Subsequent training sessions were either massed or spaced by two days or one week and tested at a retention interval of three weeks. Performances were evaluated for number of correct and incorrect syllables, number of correctly and incorrectly pitched notes, degree notes were off-pitch, and number of hesitations while singing. The data revealed strong evidence for a spacing effect for song between the massed and spaced conditions at a retention interval of three weeks, and evidence of no difference between the two spaced conditions. These findings suggest that the ongoing cues offered by surface features in the song are strong enough to enable verbatim recall across spaced conditions, as long as the spacing interval reaches a critical threshold.

Highlights

Singing is one of the oldest means of transmitting long sections of text with remarkable stability (Rubin, 1995)
We failed to show benefits of further memory improvements with longer spacing between learning episodes. These results suggest that songs, which contain an abundance of retrieval cues, result in more robust and long-lasting memory formation
We expected that the massed group would show an advantage for syllable and note retrieval, and that there would be no difference for syllable or note retrieval between the 2-day and 1-week spaced conditions

Summary

Introduction

Singing is one of the oldest means of transmitting long sections of text with remarkable stability (Rubin, 1995). Like other forms of music performance, it involves the unspooling of a long chain of association, where what is to come is cued by what is taking place (Chaffin et al, 2015). The rhythm and prosody of the lyrics and the rhythmic and pitch constraints of the tune function as a framework for the song materials that constrain possible word and note choices (Rubin, 1995, 2006; Wallace & Rubin, 1991). This framework is presented at the first learning episode. When prosodic aspects of the poetic form—including stress patterns, rhyme, alliteration, and verse structure—are understood and the musical pitch

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