Working memory modulates the effect of music on word learning

Ong, Jia Hoong; Chan, Alice H. D.

doi:10.1017/langcog.2022.29

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 62 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Meanwhile, older adults generally perform worse than younger adults on remembering complex, unfamiliar music in short-term and recognition tasks but not simple, familiar music in long-term memory tasks (Halpern & Bartlett, 2002). Additionally, according to intervention-based training studies, the benefit may be mediated by improving working memory in general (Borella et al, 2017;Diaz Abrahan et al, 2021;Marie et al, 2023;Mussoi, 2021;Ong & Chan, 2023;Roden et al, 2014;Román-Caballero et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2020).…”

Section: Memory For Music In Older Adults With Musical Trainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age and familiarity effects on musical memory

Sauvé,

Satkunarajah,

Cooke

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background. A common complaint in older adults is trouble with their memory, especially for new information. Current knowledge about normal aging and changes in memory identify a divide between memory tasks that are unaffected by aging and those that are. Among the unaffected are recognition tasks. These memory tasks rely on accessing well-known information, often include environmental support, and tend to be automatic. Negative age effects on memory are often observed at both encoding and during recall. Older adults often have difficulty with recall tasks, particularly those that require effortful self-initiated processing, episodic memory, and retention of information about contextual cues. Research in memory for music in healthy aging suggests a skill-invariance hypothesis: that age effects dominate when general-purpose cognitive mechanisms are needed to perform the musical task at hand, while experience effects dominate when music-specific knowledge is needed to perform the task (Halpern & Bartlett, 2002).Aims. The goals of this pair of studies were to investigate the effects of age and familiarity on musical memory in the context of real pieces of music, and to compare a live concert experimental setting with a lab-based experimental setting.Method. Participants’ task was to click a button (or press the spacebar) when they heard the target theme in three pieces of music. One was Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and the others were original pieces commissioned for this study, one tonal and one atonal. Participants heard the relevant theme three times before listening to a piece of music. The music was performed by the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra; participants either attended the concert, or watched a recording of the concert in the lab. Participants also completed two short cognitive tests and filled out a questionnaire collecting demographic information and a hearing abilities self-assessment.Results. We find a significant effect of familiarity and setting but not of age or musical training on recognition performance as measured by d’. More specifically, performance is best for the familiar, tonal piece, moderate for the unfamiliar tonal piece and worst for the unfamiliar atonal piece. Performance was better in the live setting than the lab setting.Conclusions. The absence of an age effect provides encouraging evidence that music’s diverse cues may encourage cognitive scaffolding, in turn improving encoding and subsequent recognition. Better performance in an ecological versus lab setting supports the expansion of ecological studies in the field.

show abstract

Section: Memory For Music In Older Adults With Musical Trainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age and familiarity effects on musical memory

Sauvé,

Satkunarajah,

Cooke

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Meanwhile, older adults generally perform worse than younger adults on remembering complex, unfamiliar music in short-term and recognition tasks but not simple, familiar music in long-term memory tasks [ 1 ]. Additionally, according to intervention-based training studies, the benefit may be mediated by improving working memory in general [ 22 , 26 – 29 , 32 , 67 , 68 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age and familiarity effects on musical memory

Sauvé,

Satkunarajah,

Cooke

et al. 2024

PLoS ONE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background A common complaint in older adults is trouble with their memory, especially for new information. Current knowledge about normal aging and changes in memory identify a divide between memory tasks that are unaffected by aging and those that are. Among the unaffected are recognition tasks. These memory tasks rely on accessing well-known information, often include environmental support, and tend to be automatic. Negative age effects on memory are often observed at both encoding and during recall. Older adults often have difficulty with recall tasks, particularly those that require effortful self-initiated processing, episodic memory, and retention of information about contextual cues. Research in memory for music in healthy aging suggests a skill-invariance hypothesis: that age effects dominate when general-purpose cognitive mechanisms are needed to perform the musical task at hand, while experience effects dominate when music-specific knowledge is needed to perform the task [1]. Aims The goals of this pair of studies were to investigate the effects of age and familiarity on musical memory in the context of real pieces of music, and to compare a live concert experimental setting with a lab-based experimental setting. Method Participants’ task was to click a button (or press the spacebar) when they heard the target theme in three pieces of music. One was Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and the others were original pieces commissioned for this study, one tonal and one atonal. Participants heard the relevant theme three times before listening to a piece of music. The music was performed by the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra; participants either attended the concert, or watched a recording of the concert in the lab. Participants also completed two short cognitive tests and filled out a questionnaire collecting demographic information and a hearing abilities self-assessment. Results We find a significant effect of familiarity and setting but not of age or musical training on recognition performance as measured by d’. More specifically, performance is best for the familiar, tonal piece, moderate for the unfamiliar tonal piece and worst for the unfamiliar atonal piece. Performance was better in the live setting than the lab setting. Conclusions The absence of an age effect provides encouraging evidence that music’s diverse cues may encourage cognitive scaffolding, in turn improving encoding and subsequent recognition. Better performance in an ecological versus lab setting supports the expansion of ecological studies in the field.

show abstract

The effect of working memory and English proficiency on Chinese EFL learners’ vocabulary learning with background music

Murao

2023

Ampersand

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Working memory modulates the effect of music on word learning

Cited by 3 publications

References 62 publications

Age and familiarity effects on musical memory

Age and familiarity effects on musical memory

Age and familiarity effects on musical memory

The effect of working memory and English proficiency on Chinese EFL learners’ vocabulary learning with background music

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About