Poster 2

Effects of Music Genre on Geometric Memory Recall

Catherine Holowacz

We investigated the effects of music genre on geometric memory recall. In the present study, all participants were asked to complete a matching card game three times, each time while listening to classical music, low-fi beats music or silence. The cards used in each matching task had colorful and shapely geometric patterns on them. Each participant’s results were measured by the time it took to complete the matching task in seconds and the number of errors that they made during the task. We hypothesized that the classical and low-fi beats trials would have fairly similar results. It was also hypothesized that regardless of genre, that the two trials where music was present would have been more positive performance outcomes than the silence condition. A significant interaction reflected the fact that participants made significantly fewer errors in the classical condition than in the silence condition. The data suggests that the experimental manipulation of classical music did have an effect on the number of errors committed by a participant during the memory recall matching task when compared to the silence condition.

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