does music help to recall lyrics

DOES MUSIC HELP TO RECALL LYRICS ?
Amélie Racett e & Isabelle Peretz
Groupe de Recherche en Neuropsychologie Ex périmentale, Université de Montréal
Centre de recherche, Inst itut universit aire de gériatrie de Montréal
PRESENT STUDY
Vocal recall of unfam iliar song lyrics was
used t o assess the ef f ect of m usic on t ex t
m em ory.
There were 3 conditions:
Pres en t a t ion
Su n g
Su n g
Divid ed *
Recall
Su n g
Sp oken
Sp oken
Mu s ic effect o n p ro d u ctio n
Mu s ic effect a t en cod in g
* Divided pr esent ation: spok en lyr ics presented
METHOD
Adaptive procedure using a song
example
Line(s) pr esented
recalled
Line(s) repeat ed or
1 Dans cette petite boîte vide
1 Dans cette petite boîte vide
1 Dans cette petite boîte vide
2 Avec un ruban de velours
1 Dans cette petite boîte vide
2 Avec un ruban de velours
3 Il y a tout m on
3 Il y a tout mon cœur et mes rides
cœur et mes rides
If amour
80 %
4 Mon sourire et tout mon
tout m onIfam our
80 %
Scoring: # of wor ds cor rectly recalled / # of possible
wor dsX100,
Wit h standar d deviations into parentheses
Non- m usicians Musicians Sungsung 66% (19%) 56% (18%) Sungspok en 71% (14%) 68% (12%) Dividedspok en 73% (14%) 73% (15%)
Sung recall is signif icantly inf erior to spoken
recall (F (2, 34) = 10.75 ; p< .001).
No group ef f ect or interaction.
Co n t in u e
St o p
4 Mon sourire et
1 Dans cette petite boîte vide
2 Avec un ruban de velours
3 Il y a tout m on cœur et m es rides
4 Mon sourire et tout m on am our
If
80 %
RESULTS- Immediate recall
5 Il n’y a pas d’argent qui rem place
80 %
d’argentIfqui remplace
6 Tout le temps que l‘on peut donner
que l’on peut donner
Few st udies have docum ented t he role of
m usic in f acilitating recall of tex ts. In a study
of m usicians and non- m usicians, Kilgour et
al. (2 000) f ound t hat sung lyrics were bet ter
rem em bered t han spoken lyrics. However,
when sung lyrics were com pressed to
becom e as f ast as spoken lyrics, t his
advant age was no longer observed. The
result s suggest t hat m usic helps to recall
Tr aining before each condit ion with a pract ice song
Lear ning of one dif ferent song in each of t he 3 condit ions f or ever y
part icipant , following an adaptive pr ocedur e
Rey Audit or y Verbal Learning Test (5 t rials t o lear n a 15 wor ds
list )
Delayed recall
Songs, a natural com bination of language
and m usic, have long been used in oral
t radition to rem em ber st ories (Rubin, 1995 ).
Procedure
INTRODUCTION
Co n t in u e
St o p
5 Il n’y a pas
6 Tout le tem ps
1 Dans cette petite boîte vide
2 Avec un ruban de velours
3 Il y a tout m on cœur et m es rides
4 Mon sourire et tout m on am our
5 Il n’y a pas d’argent qui remplace
En d
6 Tout le tem ps que l’on peut donner
DISCUSSION
RESULTS- Rey Auditory Verbal
Learning Test (RAVLT)
No group ef f ect (F < 1; N.S.)
Perf orm ance signif icantly im proves across
t rials
(F (4, 136)= 161.2 8; p< .001)
Im m ediat e spoken recall is superior t o im m ediat e
sung recall
- Music might intr oduce an additional load on
memory.
Music does not interf ere with t ex t at the encoding
stage
- Perform ance for t he sung presentat ion of tex t is
equivalent t o t he per form ance in the divided
pr esent ation, perhaps because t he t ex t was slowed
down so as to fit the dur ation of the hum med melody.
Musicians do not show a bet ter verbal m em ory than
non- m usicians, neit her in t he song recalls nor in t he
RAVLT, which is contrary to previous f indings (Chan
et al., 1998 ; Kilgour et al., 2 000).
Results are com patible with t he not ion that m usic and
language are ind ep endent in m em ory.
Participants
36 university student s (18 m usicians/ 18 non- musicians)
M aterial
- 6 unf amiliar folk songs fr om Claude Gauthier
- 8 lines long, wit h few r epet itions, with a m ean of 6
words and 8 not es per line
REFERENCES
Chan, A.S., Ho, Y.C. & Cheung, M.C. (1998 ). Music t raining im proves verbal
memory, Nat u re, 39 6 (6 707 ), p.128 .
Kilgour, A.R., Jakobson, L.S. & Cuddy, L.L. (20 00 ). Music t raining and rat e of
present at ion as mediat ors of t ex t and song recall. Mem o ry &
Co gn i t i o n , 28(5), 7 00 - 710 .