The effect of pleasant and unpleasant music on judgments of learning and memory recall

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that if music is perceived as pleasant, it will evoke a positive mood and if music is perceived as unpleasant or aversive, it will evoke a negative mood. Mood has an effect on memory, as a positive mood enhances cognitive processes, and a negative mood impairs cognitive processes. Research has suggested that Judgments-of-Learning (JOLs) or the predictions of the likelihood of future recall, are generally accurate. According to the Cue-Utilization-Framework (Koriat, 1997), JOLs depend on intrinsic, mnemonic and extrinsic cues. Extrinsic cues include environmental factors such as background music. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of music as a potential extrinsic cue, as perceived as pleasant or unpleasant, on the accuracy of JOLs and memory recall. It is examined whether or not a congruency in music between the learning and testing periods had an effect on the accuracy of JOLs and memory recall. 62 Undergraduate students attending Laurentian University were randomly assigned to one of four conditions including: Pleasant music during learning, negative music during recall, unpleasant music during learning and negative during recall, pleasant music during both and negative music during both. Participants were asked to complete a six-scale mood rating five times throughout the experiment that included items such as cheerful, content, relaxed, irritated, frustrated, and upset. There were two word lists containing 20 words each, and participants were required to progress through a timed PowerPoint where a word would display for 5 seconds and a JOL was made immediately after (in 4 seconds). They were given 5 minutes to recall at the end of each word list. Results did not support the notion that music is an extrinsic cue affecting JOLs as there were no significant differences between conditions. Also, mood dependent memory did not exert an effect on JOLs and Recall, as incongruent conditions had significantly higher mean JOL-Recall than congruent condition (an opposite effect). Overall, JOLs appear to be an accurate predictor of performance.