Cramming for Exams? Then You Might Want to Have Some Classical Music Playing in the Background
Stressed about exams? John from Live 88-5 points to this article from Forbes:
A common sight on college campuses is students zoning out to rap, rock or the mindless drivel of Justin Bieber, Beyonce or Miley Cyrus. But if they switched to classical, instead, research suggests that their resulting test scores might show dramatic improvement.
A 1993 study by Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky –- which birthed “the Mozart Effect” — found that listening to the refined classical strains of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart improved spatial reasoning. However, follow-up studies found that the improved cognitive function was not Mozart-specific. Moreover, it remained to be tested whether listening to classical music could influence information retention.
Voila! A 2011 study of 249 French undergraduates looked at the connection between affect and retention. Publishing in Learning and Individual Differences, it found that students who listened to a one hour videotaped lecture on “Expertise in Athletics” in which classical music was played in the background scored much higher on a multiple choice test given after the lecture when compared to a control group of academically equal students who heard the lecture with no music.
Read the whole article here.
