Can Music Impact Working Memory Performance? (2023)

Undergraduate: Haiyun Lyu

Faculty Advisor: Nanthia Suthana
Department: Neurosurgery

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A study done by Salamé and Baddeley(1989) examined how background music affected short-term memory. They concluded vocal music was more disruptive than instrumental music, although both disrupted short-term memory performance. How will different types of non-lyric music affect working memory performance?
We investigated 31 college students aged 19-26 on their performance of digital span tests with no music, slow music (classical music) without lyrics, and fast music without lyrics.
We found that both slow instrumental music and silence were similar in their impact on working memory, although we could not provide a clear conclusion as to which one is more beneficial due to our small sample size. However, it is clear from our experiment that faster-paced music negatively impacts working memory. As of right now, we can say that both slow music and silence are good as background noise, and we would like to see other researchers take this experiment to a larger scale.

Keywords: Working memory, digital span, music, cognitive function, executive function

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