Ocean Wave Noise vs. Classical Music

Transcription

1 Ocean Wave Noise vs. Classical Music Can listening to ocean wave noise improve cognitive function? People are always trying to find ways to study more effectively and use tricks to improve their memory and performance on different cognitive tasks. Some have suggested that listening to classical music while studying might be one of those tricks. The Mozart effect is well known from a series of studies that found a correlation between listening to Mozart and an increase in performance levels of participants on spatial reasoning tasks (Demorest et al., 2000). Other research suggest that it is the increase in arousal due to listening to music that results in the increase in the performance on the spatial reasoning tasks (Jones et al., 2007). However, there have been attempts to replicate the Mozart effect that have failed calling into question whether or not listening to the classical music does have an impact on cognitive function. When considering playing music in general while studying, one study found that participants performed better on a cognitive task when listening to music than listening to background noise (Dobbs et al., 2011). The study did; however, also conclude that the participants performances on the cognitive task where significantly better when they completed the task in silence than when they completed the task during the music and background noise stimuli. With ocean wave noise lacking the dynamic changes in tempo that occur in classical music, this noise could be better alternative to classical music as a way to increase cognitive functioning during certain tasks. I designed this study to see if playing ocean wave music while completing a cognitive memory task would result in an increase in performance on the task when compared to performance levels when listening to classical music. I predicted that when the participants

2 listened to the ocean wave noise they would perform better on the cognitive task than when they listened to the classical music. There were two different auditory stimuli that I played during this experiment. One auditory stimulus was ocean wave white noise and the other stimulus was Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major by Johann Sebastian Bach. I used an EEG to measure the brain activity in the left and right frontal and temporal lobes of the participants in order to see if there were any differences in activity when the ocean wave stimulus was played than when the classical music stimulus was played. Frontal lobe activity was measured because this is where some problem solving and memory processes take place. The activity in the temporal was measured because this is where auditory processing takes place. I also had the participants perform a cognitive task while listening to the two different auditory stimuli in order to measure their performance. Experimental Design The subjects that participated in this experiment were twenty students at Wofford College whose ages ranged from nineteen to twenty-two. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups. In one of the groups, the ocean wave noise stimulus was played during the first testing period and the classical music stimulus was played in during the second testing period. The second group received the classical music stimulus first followed by the ocean wave noise stimulus. During the testing period, I asked the subjects to complete a 3 n-back test where they were asked to remember and click on the image if it was the one that appeared three images ago. The subjects completed the n-back test two times while listening to the different auditory stimuli. I recorded the percentage correct that the subjects scored and the average time it took for the participants to answer each question. I used an EEG to record the activity in the participants left and right temporal lobes and their left and right frontal lobes. The activity in the brain was taken in two measurements. One measurement was 30 seconds right after the beginning of the n-back

3 Perecnt Correct test (trial 1) and the second measurement was taken during the last 30 seconds of n-back test (trial 2). Figure 1: These are the covers of the albums where the auditory stimuli came from. Results and Discussion: When I analyzed the data, I first looked at the participants performance on the 3 n-back tests. I considered both the percentage correct that the subjects scored as well as the average amount of time it took for the participant to click on the picture. There was no significant difference between the percent question answered correctly when the subjects were listening to the ocean wave music than when they were listening to the classical music. However, Figure Average of the Percentage of Questions Answered Correctly Ocean Figure 2 Classical

4 Average Time (ms) does show that on average the subjects score slightly higher when listening to the ocean wave noise than when listening to the classical music. When considering the average time it took for the subjects to answer the question and click on the image, Figure 3 shows that the participants had a faster reaction time when listening to the classical music than when they were listening to the ocean wave music, even though there was no significant difference. This data points to a trend that the participants reacted faster and click more quickly on the image when they were listening to the classical music stimulus, but they were not as correct Average of the Amount of Time Taken to Answer Each Question Ocean Figure 3 Classical When looking at the data collected from the EEG, I found that there was a significant interaction between the location and the hemisphere during the ocean wave noise stimulus, F(1, 19) = 5.706, p =.027. Figure 4 shows that when compared to the baseline the first 30 seconds of brain activity (trial 1) showed a slight increase in activity in the frontal lobe when the participants were listening to the ocean wave noise. This increase in activity could be the result of the participants going from not performing any cognitive task during the baseline recording to having to focus quickly and preform the task as soon as in started. The activity in the temporal

5 Percent Change EEG Activity lobe; however, showed a decrease in activity during the ocean wave noise stimulus. In trial 2 there was a slight decrease in activity in the frontal lobe when compared to the baseline when the participants were listening to the ocean wave noise. Activity in the temporal lobe was still lower than baseline in trial 2 of the ocean wave noise stimulus. Although there was no significant interaction found between the participants brain activity in the frontal and temporal lobes during the different trials when the classical music stimulus was played, there was a slight increase in brain activity in the temporal lobe during trial one when compared to the baseline How Does the Trial Impact Brain Activity? Ocean 1 Ocean 2 Classical 1 Classical 2 Frontal Temporal Figure 4 I then considered the overall data from both trials when the ocean wave noise stimulus was played as seen in Figure 5. There were no significant main effects found; however, when compared to the baseline there was no change in activity in the frontal and temporal lobe in the left hemisphere. There was a decrease in activity seen in the right hemisphere for both the frontal and the temporal lobe. The greater activity in the left hemisphere when compared to the right hemisphere could be due to the fact that the left hemisphere is more involved with tasks that have to do with logic and reasoning such as the n-back test that the participants completed.

6 Percent Change EEG Activity Percent Change EEG Activity Do Ocean Wave Sounds Influence Our Mental Processing? Left Hemisphere Frontal Temporal Figure 5 Right Hemisphere When looking at the overall data from both trials when classical music was played there was no significant main effect, but overall there was a decrease in activity when compared to the baseline for both the left and right frontal and temporal lobes as seen in Figure 6. There was slightly more activity in the temporal lobe than the frontal lobe in both the left and the right hemisphere. The increase in activity of the temporal lobe when compared to the frontal lobe could be due to the fact that the classical music was a more complex auditory stimulus than the ocean wave music and; therefore, there was an increase in the activity in the auditory processing center. Does Classical Music Influence Our Mental Processing? Left Hemisphere Frontal Temporal Right Hemisphere Figure 6

7 Conclusion: In summary: on average when listening to the ocean wave music participants answered more questions correctly than when they listened to classical music even though it took them slightly longer to click on the picture. Another main findings in this experiment was that there was a significant interaction between the frontal and temporal lobes and the trial when the ocean wave noise stimulus was played. This could be interpreted that during the first 30 seconds, there was an increase in activity in the frontal lobe due to the participants starting the cognitive task. During the last 30 seconds of the task the slight increase in the activity in the temporal lobe might be due to the participants focusing less on the cognitive task and more on the auditory stimulus. The listening to the classical music seemed to increase the activity in the temporal lobe, but not in the frontal lobe. There was very little change in activity in the temporal and frontal lobed during the ocean wave stimuli. Although this experiment did not provide any clear and conclusive results that indicate that listening to ocean wave music is better at improving cognitive function during a task than listening to classical music, some of the results such as the lack of change in activity in both the temporal and frontal lobe suggest that ocean wave music might not have a positive or a negative effect. Further research could be done in order to examine the effect that ocean wave noise has on completing cognitive function tasks when compared to complete silence.

8 Works Cited Demorest, S. M., & Morrison, S. J. (2000). Does Music Make You Smarter? Music Educators Journal, 87(2), 33. Dobbs, S., Furnham, A. and McClelland, A. (2011), The Effect of Background Music and Noise on the Cognitive Test Performance of Introverts and Extraverts. Appl. Cognit. Psychol., 25: doi: /acp.1692 Jones, M. H., & Estell, D. B. (2007). Exploring the Mozart effect among high school students. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 1(4), doi: / Acknowledgements Thank you to Dr. Pittman for helping me with the design, data collection, and the construction of the graphs for this experiment. I would also like to thank the Wofford College Psychology Department for allowing me to use their testing materials and space. Finally, I would like to thank all of my classmates who took their time to volunteer to participate in this experiment.