Abstract
Literature on the effects of passive music listening on cognitive performance is mixed, showing negative, null or positive results depending on cognitive domain, age group, temporal relation between music and task (background music vs. music before task, the latter known as Mozart effect), or listener-dependent variables such as musical preference. Positive effects of background music on the two components of episodic memory – item and source memory - for verbal materials seem robust and age-independent, and thus deserve further attention. In the current study, we investigated two potential enhancers of music effects on episodic memory: stopping music before task performance (Mozart effect) to eliminate music-related distraction and using preferred music to maximize reward. We ran a main study on a sample of 51 healthy younger adults, along with a pilot study with 12 older adults, divided into low- vs. high functioning according to cognitive performance in a screening test. Against our expectations, Bayesian analyses showed strong evidence that music had no advantage over silence or environmental sounds in younger adults. Preferred music had no advantage either, consistent with the possibility that music-related reward had no impact on episodic memory. Among older adults, low- but not high-functioning participants’ item memory was improved by music – especially by non-preferred music - compared to silence. Our findings suggest that, in healthy adults, prior-to-task music may be less effective than background music in episodic memory enhancement despite decreased distraction, possibly because reward becomes irrelevant when music is stopped before the task begins. Our pilot findings on older adults raise the hypothesis that low-functioning older participants relate to prior-to-task auditory stimulation in deviant ways when it comes to episodic memory enhancement.
Highlights
Music is incorporated in many aspects of everyone’s life
Music contexts did not enhance episodic memory compared to silence or environmental sounds, suggesting that the advantage of background music that had been seen in previous studies (Bottiroli et al, 2014; Ferreri et al, 2014, 2015) may vanish if music is stopped before task performance
One possibility is that this was due to increased physiological arousal (Rickard, 2004), since the jazz excerpt was lighter in terms of texture and event density compared to heavy metal
Summary
Music is incorporated in many aspects of everyone’s life. The act of listening to music is often motivated by the search for aesthetic experiences or affective regulation (Groarke and Hogan, 2018), but there is an increasing awareness that passive music listening – i.e., listening without analytical intentions – may enhance cognitive performance (for cognitive effects of music training, Music, Memory and Cognitive Status see Kraus and Chandrasekaran, 2010; Besson et al, 2011). Determining when and how passive music listening enhances cognitive performance in younger adults is an important practical goal, in that it may provide directions for the optimization of their study/work conditions. Despite the potential that lies in promoting cognitive enhancement through passive music listening, research findings remain mixed. These findings fall into three main research topics: sung vs spoken words, background music effects, and neuropsychological priming via music (related to the Mozart effect tradition, see below). In all these topics, we find evidence of negative, null and positive impact of music across different cognitive domains and populations
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