What kind of music helps you memorize things faster?

If I play instrumental music while having test subjects memorize a passage, then they will remember it more accurately than when trying to remember a passage without music.

These are the materials necessary for this project:

• Headphones

• Phone or ipad to play music

• 4 passages with the same difficulty

• a quiet room

• 4 types of music or sound

Gather Materials

1. Get the 4 passages and the three songs.

2. Plug in the headphones and ask (or capture) one of your friends to memorize one of the passages with music playing in the headphones.

3. Let your friend memorize the passage for 8 minutes.

4. Put away the passage and allow them to reviw it in their mind for 30 seconds.

5. Without waiting, have your test subject say the passage.

6. Repeat the third through fifth step with the rest of the passages and music.

7. Repeat the experiment 3 times to ensure you have accurate information.

Independent variable : the kind of music.

Dependent variable : how much they remember.

Constant :the same amount of time to memorize the passages.

Control : running the experiment with no music.

What kind of music helps you memorize things faster? My hypothesis was If I play instrumental music while having test subjects memorize a passage, then they will remember it more accurately than when trying to remember a passage without music. I based my hypothesis on the fact that according to ​www.study.com​ “​Music that is soothing and relaxing can help students to beat stress or anxiety while studying. Background music may improve focus on a task by providing motivation and improving mood. During long study sessions, music can aid endurance. In some cases, students have found that music helps them with memorization, likely by creating a positive mood, which indirectly boosts memory formation.” ​ My results stated that learning in silence was better. I think my results were this because some of the test subjects were conducting the experiment at home or in the classroom so the results could vary on that. The final observation made was that if the subject liked the song, it improved their mood which in turn, helped them memorize more words. In conclusion the results of studying with or without music can vary for everyone.

The purpose of my experiment was to test what type of music helps you memorize things better. If I play instrumental music while having test subjects memorize a passage, then they will remember it more accurately than when trying to remember a passage without music. My hypothesis was incorrect because, according to the experiment, memorizing in silence is the best way to memorize something. Memorizing in silence is the best way to learn because some music can be very distracting, and if you are distracted while memorizing you can’t remember it well. To conduct this experiment we first had the test subject learn the passage for eight minutes, then I let them review it without the music nor the passage, third I had them read it aloud. I found that most participants would close their eyes while memorizing, they also would repeat the passage several times until they remembered. Sometimes they would just repeat it in their mind. Another thing I noticed was that when the music was too loud they weren’t able to memorize it right, like the ocean waves, subject 1 said, “ the ocean waves were really distracting because they were so loud.”They also said, “the instrumental music was easy because there were no words” Subject 2 “It was easy to memorize too HSM because it is one of my favorites.” Subject 2 had a strange way to memorize in silence, she said it like if she was reciting a theater script, making a song or saying it in a strange accent, surprisingly it worked quite well. For subject 2 the ocean waves were the most distracting. These results were more or less the same throughout. The next thing I noticed was that if the subject liked the song, it improved their mood which in turn, helped them memorize more words. The final thing I found was that when participants were memorizing the passages at home the results varied, probably because there were more or less distractions. This experiment can be improved by having all test subjects memorize and recite the passages in the same location. These findings can be used in daily life by making sure to study in complete silence or with songs you like.

You can aply these findings to your daily life by studying in silence with no distractions or with music you like. You can also use this to study for tests by memorizing what you need to know. Finaly make sure during a test that you have a quiet room.

Passages

https://www.thomas.k12.ga.us/docs/3rd%20Grade%20Skills.pdf

https://www.k5learning.com/reading-comprehension-worksheets

​Sources : Brainscape

https://www.brainscape.com/academy/background-noise-for-studying-distracting/ Is background nosie good for studying?

Study.com

https://study.com/academy/popular/is-it-good-to-listen-to-music-while-studying.ht ml

"Is it Good to Listen to Music While Studying?" Study.com, 29 October 2015, study.com/academy/popular/is-it-good-to-listen-to-music-while-studying.html

University of Wollongong https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2019/is-it-ok-to-listen-to-music-while-studying.php

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS