Abstract
This study investigates how background music influences learning with respect to three different theoretical approaches. Both the Mozart effect as well as the arousal-mood-hypothesis indicate that background music can potentially benefit learning outcomes. While the Mozart effect assumes a direct influence of background music on cognitive abilities, the arousal-mood-hypothesis assumes a mediation effect over arousal and mood. However, the seductive detail effect indicates that seductive details such as background music worsen learning. Moreover, as working memory capacity has a crucial influence on learning with seductive details, we also included the learner’s working memory capacity as a factor in our study. We tested 81 college students using a between-subject design with half of the sample listening to two pop songs while learning a visual text and the other half learning in silence. We included working memory capacity in the design as a continuous organism variable. Arousal and mood scores before and after learning were collected as potential mediating variables. To measure learning outcomes we tested recall and comprehension. We did not find a mediation effect between background music and arousal or mood on learning outcomes. In addition, for recall performance there were no main effects of background music or working memory capacity, nor an interaction effect of these factors. However, when considering comprehension we did find an interaction between background music and working memory capacity: the higher the learners’ working memory capacity, the better they learned with background music. This is in line with the seductive detail assumption.
Highlights
AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDMusic has become much more readily available to the public in the past decades
As we defined background music as a seductive detail, we argue that research on other seductive details in interaction with working memory capacity might be transferrable
To analyze whether background music influences learning outcomes indirectly mediated through mood or arousal, a first step is to analyze whether background music influences mood or arousal directly
Summary
AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDMusic has become much more readily available to the public in the past decades. Music and Learning memory capacity is high enough do learners have sufficient capacity to invest in the learning task after processing the auditive information In this case, appropriate background music could be of benefit to learners by influencing their mood and arousal level to an optimal state, thereby fostering the learning process. Appropriate background music could be of benefit to learners by influencing their mood and arousal level to an optimal state, thereby fostering the learning process Even for those learners melodies should be chosen that only pose a small burden on working memory. Music and Learning occurred in the learners with the lowest working memory capacity who reached higher comprehension scores without background music. Effects might have been attributed to other variables such as motivation or situational interest, which might be unequally distributed and were not controlled for
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