It turns out some people use the same mental processes that are required to remember things to also process music, which means that a percentage of the brain regions responsible for memory - regions you need to focus on the task at hand - are actually being re-allocated to processing background noise. Then, PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’ became the first video to get a billion views. Justin Bieber’s song ‘Baby’ was the most watched music video on YouTube until 2012. Popular videos can quickly become extremely popular internationally. However, compared to silence, background music had either no effect for some participants or significantly impeded memory performance. Watching music on video streaming sites on the internet is now more popular than listening to the radio with young British people. The results? It turns out memory performance was best while listening to low arousal, negative music, and worst for high arousal negative music. Participants also completed the same tasks while listening to no music.
Participants completed three memory tasks while listening to four types of music: Yet despite the prevalence of music in our daily lives, little is known about how this soundtrack affects brain function.Ī recently published article in "Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain" by Tram Nguyen, a Scientist on the Cambridge Brain Sciences team, examined the effects of background music on memory by using music to alter the listener's mood (happy or sad) and arousal states (positive or negative).
Are you the kind of person who enjoys listening to music when carrying out certain tasks - for instance, while studying for an exam, driving a car, or reading a book? A common belief shared by many is that listening to background music helps improve focus, blocks out distractions, and even makes a tedious task more enjoyable.