1

Liao Zijun (U1430141J) Marylyn Tan (U1431145L) Nicole Kwek Xin Yi (U1430235A) Siti Nur Atiqah Bte Abdul Hadi (U1430435E) Yeow Shu Hua Joey (U1430779B)

Sadness and the student: The relationship between emotional affect and academic performance in school.

Can listening to sad music help one become a better student? In recent years, numerous studies have confirmed the connection between memory and emotion. In particular, the concept of mood-dependent memory (also known as MDM, which describes improved memory retrieval under conditions where individuals experience the same mood as when encoding occurs) has been of great research interest (Beck & McBee, 1995). To induce a particular mood condition, researchers have used various stimuli, such as visual and auditory materials, and participants’ self-referential statements. Understanding the link between emotion and memory has its applications in various sectors of society. In the education sector, a more thorough understanding of the retention of information could lead to more effective studying habits for students. Similarly, in marketing, the choice of background music could affect the efficacy of advertisements and campaigns. Advancements in the field of mood and memory may also prove to benefit the medical field with regard to memory-related disorders and treatments such as music therapy. Based on these observations, we conducted a study among 40 undergraduates at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore to find out if positive or negative affect influences long term memory. For the purposes of our research, emotionally-differentiated (“happy” and “sad”) versions of the same piece of music were played while participants were presented with a list of neutral-affect words to memorise. They were then asked to recall as many of the words as possible within a set time frame. The ability to memorise and recall information is crucial to the academic context, as the Singaporean education system requires students to retain and reproduce vast amounts of information to demonstrate subject competence. We hypothesize that there will be a significant difference in memory retrieval when encoding takes place under different affect conditions. Through this study, we found that students perform better in recall tasks when exposed to sad music compared to happy music. The findings for this research contribute to existing literature on academic performance and affect, specifically within an educational culture that emphasises rote-learning methods. I. LITERATURE REVIEW Memory is affected by variables that may influence the quality and amount of information encoded (Naveh-Benjamin, Craik, Perretta, & Tonev, 2000). Memory studies, especially relating to the encoding and retrieval of information, are of interest to fields such as education and clinical psychology. From these studies, one’s psychological state and mood seem to be the major influencing factors on memory, but exactly how and what kind of information they affect has been contentious (Forgas, 2001).

2

Several works examining the mood-dependence effect on memory have described higher retrieval ability when participants’ moods during both retrieval and encoding match (Eich, 1995; Forgas, 2001; Coan & Allen, 2007), hence demonstrating the fundamental link between memory and affect. Memory has been shown to not only be dependent on affect but also the level of one’s mood at both encoding and retrieval stages (Robinson & Rollings, 2011). The type of mood at the point of encoding has also been found to affect memory, with a positive mood showing a more pronounced effect on memories than a negative mood (Forgas & Bower, 1987). Additionally, one’s susceptibility to mood-dependent memory in the process of retrieval is also reliant on whether the mood is generated by internal psychological reasons or external stimuli (Eich, Macaulay, & Ryan, 1994). Mood-dependency may also be explained through the associative network theory, where similar moods act as a linking cue to connect individual memories (Bower, 1981). This view of mood-dependency, however, is debatable; it has been found that emotions impair recall in certain studies, especially when the difficulty of the tasks increase (Ellis, Seibert & Varner, 1995). In addition, experiments structured around simple list memorisation where specific moods were induced in participants have displayed almost equal instances of them being statistically significant and statistically not (Forgas, 2001). Although a strong positive association between mood and memory has been demonstrated, current research findings lack consensus about what effects different moods have on memory recall. Methodologically, most studies used visual stimuli such as words and faces to induce different moods. In studies utilising pictures, there was an absence of positively-valenced stimuli as all arousing pictures were restricted to being negatively-valenced. Positively-valenced pictures of an equal arousal level tended to be sexual in nature, which potentially confounded the data due to gender-specific differences (Levens & Phelps, 2008). Studies utilising audio stimuli were found to be more reliable in producing results that concluded a relation between mood and memory (Beck & McBee, 1995; Balch & Lewis, 1996; Ellis, Seibert & Varner, 1995). In Balch and Lewis’ (1996) study, however, only a change in the tempo of music was associated with better retrieval, with other aspects of musicality showing no effect on memory, which differed from previous findings on mood-dependent memory. In addition, few studies on mood and memory are specific to the Singapore context. We posit that the findings of this paper may be of import to research on the East Asian education system, given the exam-centric culture of many Asian societies, as well as to culture-specific learning styles and curricula structures. This paper thus chooses to focus on mood-dependent memory and may have implications for students who listen to music while studying, especially those within educational systems that incorporate significant amounts of rote memorisation. II. METHODOLOGY Materials First, a list of words was created with measures taken to the best of our ability to ensure that they were neutral. Words with common associations such as “knife” (could be thought of as negative) were removed. Words with multiple word classes such as “chair” (both a noun and a verb) were also eliminated from the list. To aid in the recollection process, the selected words were monosyllabic and restricted to three to six letters. The chosen words had no apparent link to one another.

3

Next, a sound clip from the instrumental piece, ‘Canon in D’ by Johann Pachelbel, was chosen to induce mood. One version of the sound clip was in the major key while the other was in the minor key to induce a positive and negative mood respectively. Traditionally, music in the major key is associated with uplifting, happy expression, while minor-key melodies are usually passive and melancholy (Henver, 1935). Thus, there are clear emotional implications for using a major/minor-keyed piece of music. ‘Canon in D’ was chosen for its qualities of easy listening and perceived familiarity within the classical genre; participants would thus be less likely to display strong reactions to the piece. Also, instrumental music was chosen over music with lyrics, so that the vocals would not interfere with the words the participants had to read. A mathematics test (Task 2, Appendix B) consisting of three primary school-level questions (Primary 3 to 4) acted as a distraction task for participants during their rest period. This test requires only basic level mathematical skills that any tertiary level student would be expected to possess. The rest period of 2 minutes was given between the end of Task 1 (reading the neutral-affect words) and the beginning of Task 3 (word recall). The rest period was essential to reduce the likelihood of any primacy or recency effect occurring during Task 3. Hence, the mathematics test was implemented during the rest period to prevent participants from consciously recalling the neutral-words before it was time to retrieve them. A pilot test was conducted on eight NTU students prior to the actual experiment to assess the feasibility and operationalisation of the experiment and we found no major flaws in our design experiment. Our research was conducted in the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore to allow us easy access to our population sample of undergraduates. We focused on undergraduates because this group of students have had longer periods of classroom-based learning methods that require rote memorisation and recall. Our population sample consists of 40 students, 20 of whom were males and 20 of whom were females. This differentiation between samples is based on the link between gender and differing performance on memory tasks (Canli, Desmond, Zhao & Gabrieli, 2002). For each gender, 10 were assigned to the ‘happy’ mood condition while the other 10 were assigned to the ‘sad’ mood condition. Process

1. The participants were briefed and asked to sign a consent form (Appendix A). 2. They were then given a pair of earphones and the assigned sound clip was played. Fifteen

seconds into the clip, participants were given a piece of paper containing 21 neutral words (Appendix D) and were instructed to read them until the music stopped two minutes later.

3. After two minutes, both the earphones and the piece of paper were collected from the participants.

4. They were then presented with three mathematics problem sums to solve (Appendix B). After two minutes, the participants were told to stop regardless of whether the problem sums were solved.

5. Their answers were collected after which they were presented with a numbered list (1 - 21).

6. The participants were then given two minutes to fill in as many words as they could recall from the 21 neutral words they read earlier.

7. After two minutes, the list was collected.

4

8. The participants were then debriefed on the actual aim of the experiment (Appendix A) and dismissed.

III. FINDINGS/DISCUSSION Memory and mood difference Figure 1 shows the average number of words recalled when ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ moods were induced through the two music samples. A two sample t-test was conducted to compare the number of words recalled by participants who were exposed to ‘sad’ music with the participants (GRP 1) who were exposed to ‘happy’ music (GRP 2). As shown in Fig 1. there was a significant difference in the number of words recalled when participants were exposed to the negative mood condition, scoring on average 10.95 words (SD = 3.20) as opposed to an average of 8.60 words (SD = 3.59) among participants who were exposed to positive mood condition. The calculated probability level p is less than the significant alpha level (p<0.05) which shows that our hypothesis is statistically significant. These results suggest that the ‘sad’ mood is positively related to retrieval performance. This finding echoes other studies where negative emotion resulted in enhanced memory (Kern, Libkuman & Otani, 2002). The effect of negative mood on memory has been further linked by other research to the vividness of memories (Christianson & Loftus, 1991). Furthermore, neuroscientific studies have found that music with ‘sad’ or dissonant sounds are more likely to stimulate the left neural hemisphere (Salimpoor et al., 2011), which have been identified as vital to semantic working memory (Gabrieli, Poldrack & Desmond, 1998). This site-specific neurological basis may further explain the differences in retrieval between the two groups of participants. In addition, previous research demonstrates that participants involved in ongoing tasks while in a positive mood are more susceptible to being distracted by stimuli that are irrelevant to the task (Rowe, Hirsh & Anderson, 2006; Biss & Hasher, 2011). This may also account for the lowered performance of participants in the positive mood condition as decreased attention to the task at hand may have been detrimental to the quality and amount of information they were able to encode. As such, mood has been proven to have an influence on one’s ability to recall items from long term memory.

Figure 1. Average number of words recalled in relation to emotion induced

5

Memory and gender Observable differences between the two genders were also found with regard to the test scores. Figure 2 compares the average number of words recalled by males and females. The results indicate that male participants recalled an average of 10.60 words in the “sad” condition group while female participants recalled an average of 11.30 words. Similarly, male participants recalled an average of 7.10 words when the “happy” mood was induced while female participants recalled 10.10 words. However, the statistical difference between the average number of words male participants (M=8.85, SD=3.31) and female participants (M=10.70, SD=3.64) recalled was non-significant; p=0.09 which is more than the confidence level of 0.05. In general, female participants were found to recall more words than male participants under both mood conditions. This suggests that females are generally able to encode more items in their long term memory than males, particularly linguistic items. As mentioned above, this is reinforced by studies that show that females outperform males on episodic memory tasks (Burton et al., 2004) such as categorizable and random word recall (Dixon et al., 2004; Herlitz, Nilsson, & Backman, 1997), and story recall (Dixon et al., 2004; Fritsch, Larsen, & Smyth, 2007). As the performances of the two genders in episodic memory tasks parallel that of long term memory retrieval tasks, it is highly likely that with a larger sample size for this study, there will be a statistically significant difference between the performance of males and females in long term memory retrieval tasks as well.

Figure 2. Average number of words recalled in relation to gender & emotion induced

Limitations and implications for future research Due to the subjective nature of mood, it was difficult to ascertain whether participants were experiencing the ‘sad’ or ‘happy’ moods that were supposed to be experiencing at the time of the experiment. This was because other factors, such as fatigue and stress, prior to the experiment could have influenced their moods. It is difficult to control for such changeable factors, especially without access to specialised psychological tools for emotional evaluation.

6

In addition, this research paper could have been further developed to explore interacting effects between ethnicity and memory recall. The structure of certain languages may be better primed for rote memorisation, which may then point to a relationship between language acquisition and memory performance. In particular, due to the multi-ethnic composition of the Singaporean population, this may be an avenue of interest for further research. It was also mentioned above that emotion has been found to impair recall as task difficulty increases. However, due to time constraints, our participants were only exposed to simple tasks within the parameters of this experiment. It may be beneficial for additional studies to explore the effects of emotion and task difficulty in a local cultural context. IV. CONCLUSION This study was conducted with the intention of finding out if long term memory is affected by ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ moods. Based our findings, we conclude that the ‘sad’ mood was more effective for memory retrieval and thus, for optimal retention of information, ‘sad’ music in the major key could be played to enhance rote memorisation. In addition, females were found to have better retrieval abilities compared to males, which shows how gender is an important variable in recall performance. The parameters of our research focuses on methods of inducing mood through auditory stimuli. For the Singapore context, our research may provide a useful platform to consider other factors that may enhance or influence memory which would be useful to pedagogy and classroom management. For example, how does an instructor create mood-environments to enhance learning for their students? Our research shows that “sad’ music in the minor key aids in memory recall, but what other forms of mood stimuli can be used within classrooms? Recognizing the link between stress levels and high academic expectations within Singapore’s education system, our research will benefit various stakeholders in the education sector such as learning institutions, students, instructors, parents and state agencies in developing conducive learning environments in schools.

7

REFERENCES Balch, W.R. & Lewis, B. S. (1996). Music-dependent memory: The roles of tempo change and

mood mediation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and

Cognition, 22(6), 1354-1363.

Beck, R.C., & McBee, W. (1995). Mood-dependent memory for generated and repeated words:

Replication and extension. Cognition and Emotion, 9(4), 289-307. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/58315321?accountid=12665

Biss, R.K. & Hasher, L. (2011). Delighted and distracted: Positive affect increases priming for

irrelevant information. Emotion, 11(6), 1474-1478. doi: 10.1037/a0023855

Biss, R.K., Hasher, L., & Thomas, R.C. (2010). Positive mood is associated with the implicit use

of distraction. Motivation & Emotion, 34(1), 73-77. doi: 10.1007/s11031-010-9156-y

Bower, G.H. (1981). Mood and memory. American Psychologist, 36(2), 129-148. doi: 0003-

066X/81/3602-0129S00.75

Burton, L.A., Rabin, L., Vardy, S.B., Frohlich, J., Wyatt, G., Dimitri, D., … Guterman, E.

(2004). Gender differences in implicit and explicit memory for affective passages. Brain

and Cognition, 54, 218-224. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2004.02.011

Canli, T., Desmond, J.E., Zhao, Z., & Gabrieli, J.D.E. (2002). Sex differences in the neural basis

of emotional memories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99, 10789 –

10794. Retrieved from

http://www.pnas.org.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/content/99/16/10789.full

Christianson, S. A., & Loftus, E. F. (1991). Remembering emotional events: The fate of detailed

information. Cognition & Emotion, 5, 81-108.

Coan, J.A. & Allen, J.J.B. (2007). Handbook of emotion elicitation and assessment. Series in

affective science. New York, NY, US: Oxford University Press.

8

Colman, A.M. (2008). A Dictionary of Psychology (3rd ed.).London: Oxford University Press.

Dixon, R.A., Wahlin, A., Maitland, S.B., Hultsch, D.F., Hertzog, C., & Bäckman, L. (2004).

Episodic memory change in late adulthood: Generalizability across samples and

performance indices. Memory & Cognition, 32(5), 768-778.

Eich, E. (1995). Mood as a mediator of place dependent memory. Journal of Experimental

Psychology, 124(3), 293-308. doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.124.3.293

Eich, E., Macaulay, D., & Ryan, L. (1994). Mood dependent memory for events of the personal

past. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 123(2), 201-215.

Ellis, H.C., Seibert, P.S., & Varner, L.J. (1995). Emotion and memory: Effects of mood states on

immediate and unexpected delayed recall. Journal of Social Behaviour and Personality,

10(2), 349-362.

Ferrer, E., Lew, P., Jung, S.M., Janeke, E., Garcia, M., Peng, C., … Tam., C.F. (2014). Playing

music to relieve stress in a college classroom environment. College Student Journal,

48(3), 481-495.

Forgas, J.P. & Bower, G.H. (1987). Mood effects on person-perception judgments. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 53(1), 53-60.

Forgas, J.P. (1999). Network theories and beyond. In: T. Dalgleish & M. Power (Eds.) The

handbook of cognition and emotion. (pp. 591–612). Chichester: Wiley.

Forgas, J.P. (2001). Feeling and thinking: The role of affect in social cognition. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Fritsch, T., Larsen, J.D., & Smyth, K.A. (2007). The role of adolescent IQ and gender in the use

of cognitive support for remembering in aging. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition:

A Journal on Normal and Dysfunctional Development, 14(4), 394-416.

9

Fuentes, A., & Desrocher, M. (2013). The effects of gender on the retrieval of episodic and

semantic components of autobiographical memory. Memory, 21(6), 619-632.

doi:10.1080/09658211.2012.744423

Gabrieli, J.D., Poldrack, R.A. & Desmond, JE. (1998) The role of left prefrontal cortex in

language and memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Feb 3, 95(3):

906-913

Herlitz, A., Nilson, L., & Bäckman, L. (1997). Gender differences in episodic memory. Memory

& Cognition, 25(6), 801-811.

Kern, R. P., Libkuman, T. M., & Otani, H. (2002). Memory for negatively arousing and neutral

pictorial stimuli using a repeated testing paradigm. Cognition & Emotion, 16(6), 749-767.

Retrieved from

http://www.tandfonline.com.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/doi/pdf/10.1080/0269993014300058

1

Lang, A.J., Craske, M.G., Brown, M., & Ghaneian, A. (2001). Fear-related state dependent

memory. Cognition & Emotion, 15, 695-703.

Naveh-Benjamin, M., Craik, F. I. M., Perretta, J. G., & Tonev, S. T. (2000). The effects of

divided attention on encoding and retrieval processes: The resiliency of retrieval

processes. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53A (3), pp. 609-625.

Nguyen, T. (2013). Musical mood and musical arousal affects different stages of learning and

memory performance (Masters thesis). Retrieved from University of Western Ontario -

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. (Paper 1390)

Robinson, S.J. & Rollings, L.J.L. (2011). The effect of mood-context on visual recognition and

recall memory. The Journal of General Psychology, 138(1), 66-79.

10

Rowe, G., Hirsh, J.B., & Anderson, A.K. (2006). Positive affect increases the breadth of

attentional selection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(1), 383-388.

doi: 10.1073/pnas.0605198104

Salimpoor, V.N., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R.J. (2011). Anatomically

distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music.

Nature Neuroscience, 14, 257-262.

11

APPENDICES Appendix A - Brief and Debrief for Experiment

12

Appendix B - Mathematics Distraction Task

13

Appendix C – Verbal Instructions for Participants

14

Appendix D – Word List for Memorisation Task