Committee Chair

Shelton, Jill

Committee Member

Clark, Amanda J.; Biderman, Michael D.

Department

Dept. of Psychology

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Past research has demonstrated that music often negatively impacts performance on a variety of cognitive tasks, including tasks relevant to academia. However, there are discrepancies in the literature, including a handful of instances where no effect of music is observed. The present study tests the novel hypothesis that working memory capacity moderates the effect of music on the performance of academic tasks. Undergraduate students worked on reading comprehension and math tasks under both music and silence conditions, before completing a battery of working memory assessments. While music led to a significant decline in performance overall, working memory capacity moderated this effect in the reading comprehension tasks. These findings suggest that individuals who are better able to control their attention (as indexed by working memory performance) may be protected from music-related distraction when studying certain kinds of material.

Degree

M. S.; A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science.

Date

5-2015

Subject

Comprehension; Learning, Psychology of; Cognition -- Effect of music on; Reading comprehension -- Effect of music on

Keyword

Working memory

Discipline

Psychology

Document Type

Masters theses

DCMI Type

Text

Extent

vii, 25 leaves

Language

English

Rights

https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

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Psychology Commons

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