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The Mozart Effect on the Episodic Memory of Healthy Adults Is Null, but Low-Functioning Older Adults May Be an Exception

Literature on the effects of passive music listening on cognitive performance is mixed, showing negative, null or positive results depending on cognitive domain, age group, temporal relation between music and task (background music vs. music before task, the latter known as Mozart effect), or listen...

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Autores principales: Silva, Susana, Belim, Filipa, Castro, São Luís
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670071/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33224045
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.538194
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author Silva, Susana
Belim, Filipa
Castro, São Luís
author_facet Silva, Susana
Belim, Filipa
Castro, São Luís
author_sort Silva, Susana
collection PubMed
description Literature on the effects of passive music listening on cognitive performance is mixed, showing negative, null or positive results depending on cognitive domain, age group, temporal relation between music and task (background music vs. music before task, the latter known as Mozart effect), or listener-dependent variables such as musical preference. Positive effects of background music on the two components of episodic memory – item and source memory - for verbal materials seem robust and age-independent, and thus deserve further attention. In the current study, we investigated two potential enhancers of music effects on episodic memory: stopping music before task performance (Mozart effect) to eliminate music-related distraction and using preferred music to maximize reward. We ran a main study on a sample of 51 healthy younger adults, along with a pilot study with 12 older adults, divided into low- vs. high functioning according to cognitive performance in a screening test. Against our expectations, Bayesian analyses showed strong evidence that music had no advantage over silence or environmental sounds in younger adults. Preferred music had no advantage either, consistent with the possibility that music-related reward had no impact on episodic memory. Among older adults, low- but not high-functioning participants’ item memory was improved by music – especially by non-preferred music - compared to silence. Our findings suggest that, in healthy adults, prior-to-task music may be less effective than background music in episodic memory enhancement despite decreased distraction, possibly because reward becomes irrelevant when music is stopped before the task begins. Our pilot findings on older adults raise the hypothesis that low-functioning older participants relate to prior-to-task auditory stimulation in deviant ways when it comes to episodic memory enhancement.
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spelling pubmed-76700712020-11-20 The Mozart Effect on the Episodic Memory of Healthy Adults Is Null, but Low-Functioning Older Adults May Be an Exception Silva, Susana Belim, Filipa Castro, São Luís Front Psychol Psychology Literature on the effects of passive music listening on cognitive performance is mixed, showing negative, null or positive results depending on cognitive domain, age group, temporal relation between music and task (background music vs. music before task, the latter known as Mozart effect), or listener-dependent variables such as musical preference. Positive effects of background music on the two components of episodic memory – item and source memory - for verbal materials seem robust and age-independent, and thus deserve further attention. In the current study, we investigated two potential enhancers of music effects on episodic memory: stopping music before task performance (Mozart effect) to eliminate music-related distraction and using preferred music to maximize reward. We ran a main study on a sample of 51 healthy younger adults, along with a pilot study with 12 older adults, divided into low- vs. high functioning according to cognitive performance in a screening test. Against our expectations, Bayesian analyses showed strong evidence that music had no advantage over silence or environmental sounds in younger adults. Preferred music had no advantage either, consistent with the possibility that music-related reward had no impact on episodic memory. Among older adults, low- but not high-functioning participants’ item memory was improved by music – especially by non-preferred music - compared to silence. Our findings suggest that, in healthy adults, prior-to-task music may be less effective than background music in episodic memory enhancement despite decreased distraction, possibly because reward becomes irrelevant when music is stopped before the task begins. Our pilot findings on older adults raise the hypothesis that low-functioning older participants relate to prior-to-task auditory stimulation in deviant ways when it comes to episodic memory enhancement. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-11-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7670071/ /pubmed/33224045 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.538194 Text en Copyright © 2020 Silva, Belim and Castro. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Silva, Susana
Belim, Filipa
Castro, São Luís
The Mozart Effect on the Episodic Memory of Healthy Adults Is Null, but Low-Functioning Older Adults May Be an Exception
title The Mozart Effect on the Episodic Memory of Healthy Adults Is Null, but Low-Functioning Older Adults May Be an Exception
title_full The Mozart Effect on the Episodic Memory of Healthy Adults Is Null, but Low-Functioning Older Adults May Be an Exception
title_fullStr The Mozart Effect on the Episodic Memory of Healthy Adults Is Null, but Low-Functioning Older Adults May Be an Exception
title_full_unstemmed The Mozart Effect on the Episodic Memory of Healthy Adults Is Null, but Low-Functioning Older Adults May Be an Exception
title_short The Mozart Effect on the Episodic Memory of Healthy Adults Is Null, but Low-Functioning Older Adults May Be an Exception
title_sort mozart effect on the episodic memory of healthy adults is null, but low-functioning older adults may be an exception
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670071/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33224045
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.538194
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