Title : How musical tempo affects pre-grade school childrens’ episodic memory
Abstract:
Introduction: Musical tempo has not been definitively proven to alter memory such as storage and retrieval (Proverbio et al. 2015; Cournoyer Lemaire et al. 2019; Kwon et al. 2022). Prior studies have shown little research toward the effect of differing music tempos on the storage and retrieval of memories. Few studies have tested the effects of music tempo on young children; this study follows research done on children aged 3-5 to expand knowledge about this correlation. Understanding the relationship of music tempo on memory processes could provide more resources in healthcare and education, and improve the overall wellbeing of young children
Methods: Participants: 20 children, 10 male and 10 female, were recruited from around the globe. The youngest of them was 60 months old, and the oldest was 71 months old. their average age was 4. All participants were ensured to have no previous exposure to learning music, or to have any visible preference to specific types of music. These specifications have basis in previous literature (Kwon Y-S, Lee J and Lee SS 2022).
Procedure: Prior to the study, the participants were randomly assigned to one of the five conditions. The conditions were as follows: slow tempo music in storage, slow tempo music in retrieval, fast tempo music in storage, fast tempo music in retrieval, no music during either. All participants were orally given a list of 10 simple words and told to memorize them. Then they were given a rest period of 30 minutes. During this rest period, music was played for the groups with slow/fast music during storage. After the rest, subjects were given a memory test. The test consisted of 40 words, 10 of which were part of the previous list. While the test was administered, the same slow/fast music was played for those in the music during retrieval groups.
Tools Utilized: Electroencephalography was used to track attention, specifically alpha waves (8-12 Hz) (Kwon Y-S, Lee J and Lee SS 2022). We commission a new musical piece with no vocals from a classical composer in order to ensure no prior bias (Halpern, A. R., & Müllensiefen, D. (2008), Proverbio et al.,).
Discussion: This study was designed to show the effects of music tempo on memory storage and retrieval of young children. Our hypothesis stated that fast music during retrieval would yield the highest score of correct memories, which is supported by the results. The significant increase of correct scores when fast music was played during retrieval/recall indicates that fast-paced music has a positive effect on memory. This group of participants had an average of score of 67.5% correct answers out of 40 questions. However, the study additionally proved that music during memory tasks can increase memory capacity. The group without music on either storage or retrieval showed the lowest scores with an average result of 42.5%. These results could help significantly to improve education practices to enhance learning. With fast-paced music, educators can engage their students during lessons and assessments to enhance memory encoding and retrieval. Further research could explore the specific music types and genres that increase successful recall. The results from this study align with the research done by other studies such as Cournoyer Lemaire et al. (2019) and Ferreri et al. (2015), both of which researched the effect of background music on memory on adults.
