The Effect of BPM of Music on Short-Term Memorization and Recall

The purpose of this study is to measure whether music with varying beats per minute affects short term memorization and recall of simple one-syllable words. It is hypothesized that as the BPM of the music increases the reaction time of the participants recognition will decrease, and accracy will increase. It is hypothesized that on average this will remain true until the BPM exceeds 100 BPM (the maximum end of the average resting heart rate.) At this point, it is believed that the music will become more of a distraction as it begins to exceed the average resting heart rate.

During part 1 of the experiment, participants are shown 30 one-syllable words for one second each. In between each word there is a .5 second black screen. When shown these 30 words, participants will either be listening to music through headphones, or they will have no music playing. The study will consist of 6 conditions. The first is no music playing, followed by music playing at varying beats per minute (BPM). The independent variable is the varying BPM of the standardized song created in Apples Garageband. The song has been customized to fit the BPMs of 85, 95, 105, 115 and 125. After being shown the 30 words in part one, subjects will be given a 10 second break of a blank screen and no music. Part 2 then begins with a trial of 15 novel words along with 15 of the original words. These words will be shown for .5 seconds each, with a .5 second black screen in between. The participant must press the space bar when they believe theyve seen the word before. This is repeated for each BPM condition with 15 different novel words each time to prevent any carryover effect of remembering words from past conditions. The subjects response time and accuracy will be measured, to determine whether the music is more or less distracting at different BPM. Participants will only be measured against there on data, meaning the experiment is done within-subjects.

50 subjects from the Johns Hopkins University LAPD course will participate. Each participant will require 45 seconds for each trial in part 1, a total of 4 minutes, and the same amount of time for part 2. This is a total of 9 minutes per participant. Three participants can be tested at one time. The three experimenters (Lia, Rachel, and Sam) will provide three Macbook laptops with dual intel processors and three pairs

of JVC HAF120A earbud headphones. The data to be measured is expected to be the response time in tenths of a second from when a word is recognized, as well as whether or not a word was correctly recognized. The data will be analyzed within subjects using a Z-test to compare response times across BPM conditions, as well as percent accuracy across these conditions. The differences in males and females will be analyzed using an ANOVA analysis.