Music Effects on Mental

Activities
Group 14: Vivian Ji, Armand Johnson,
Marques Lynch, Grant Langley
When and why do you listen to music?

Music has always been a popular form of entertainment

● Studying
● Driving
● Working out
● Shopping
● Movies
Classical, Rap, Pop, and Rock
● Background information

○ Classical- Has been used to affect the mind in positive ways. Studies have shown that classical music can elevate a person’s

mood, relieve anxiety, and make a person more relaxed

○ Pop- Can be found in all types of environments, hence the “popular” genre, and the reasoning behind this is greatly due to the

mental effects they convey. Different studies have shown how pop in particular can change thought processes and increase

motivation.

○ Rap- Has always been a genre that comes from a person’s emotional and cognitive process.

○ Rock- Rock music relates to an emotional response in its listeners.

● Sample Music

○ Pop Rock

○ Rap Classical
Objectives
● To understand the concepts of music effects on mental activities both overall and when compared to silence

● To become familiar with classical, pop, rap, and rock music effects

● To understand and give insight on the different responses and benefits through different genres of music

● To be able to measure and demonstrate when classical music is extremely beneficial

● To be able to measure and demonstrate when pop music is distracting or helpful depending on environmental

settings

● To be able to measure and demonstrate how rap music will affect the mind emotionally and cognitively

● To be able to measure and demonstrate how rock music will affect mental activities in the human mind by

creating an emotional response

Hypothesis
● Music in general such as classical, pop, rap, and rock will all have a different effect on mental activities versus
silence.

● Classical music will positively correlate with activities that involve memory.

● Pop music is distracting for studying due to the amount of verbal lyrics involved, but extremely helpful for
motivation.

● Rap music will positively inspire creativity.

● Rock music will negatively correlate with memory

Test Subjects: Skewed
● Our 10 test subjects consisted of 19-23 year olds
○ 5 Males
○ 5 Females
○ Selection of Major was not IE bias
● The results would have varied more if:
○ Involved middle aged and the elderly
○ Involved kids
○ Environmental distractions were eliminated
○ More majors were tested
○ More subjects were tested
Methods
To measure for problem solving abilities, creativity, and memory
we utilized 3 tests:

❖ 15 Circles Test
➢ Classical, Rap, Rock, Pop, and no music playing.

❖ Memory Cards

➢ Classical, Rap, Rock, Pop, and no music playing.

❖ Math Test

➢ Classical, Rap, Rock, Pop, and no music playing.

15 Circles
● A way to measure creativity
○ Duration
○ Capture images of circles drawn
Results - Creativity

● Completion time when compared to silence

○ Rock decreased the time duration the least

○ Rap had the largest decrease in time

No Music Classical Pop Rap Rock

Avg 6:22 5:06 5:08 4:21 5:15

Memory Cards
● A way to measure memory

○ Duration
○ Amount of tries

○ Performed without music

○ Performed with each genre

Ex: Test Subject 1 took 14 tries in 30 seconds to

complete the test when listening to no music.
Results - Memory
● Classical, Pop, and Rap led to the fastest times

○ Rock didn’t change the time duration of the test

● Listening to Classical led to the fewest tries

○ Rock led to the most tries

No Music (A) Classical (B) Pop (C) Rap (D) Rock (E)

Avg 0:27,13.4 tries 0:24, 12.667 tries 0:24, 13.14 tries 0:24,13.3 tries 0:27, 14.6 tries
Math Test
● A way to measure problem solving
○ Duration
○ Accuracy
● Same questions but different versions, to ensure
that the difficulty stayed at the same level but they
couldn’t memorize the answers

Ex: Test Subject 1 made a 96% on the test and took a total
of 53 seconds to complete 30 questions while listening to
Rap Music
Results - Problem Solving
● Rap led to the fastest times

○ Neither genre made the times worse

● Classical and Rap led to better scores

○ Rock increased the accuracy the least

No Music (A) Classical (B) Pop (C) Rap (D) Rock (E)

Avg 97%, 0:48 99%, 0:48 98.33%, 0:45 99%, 0:40 98%, 0:45
Conclusion
● Overall, our hypothesis (for each genre) was correct.
● Silence
○ Longest time duration on all of the test, second most tries on the memory test, and lowest accuracy
on the math test.
● Classical
○ Curing the memory test, the average amount of tries was the fewest and the average time was tied for
the fastest.
○ Positively effect on memory.
● Rap
○ During the circle test, it took the subjects on average, the least amount of time to create the 15 circles.
○ Showing that rap lead to a positive effect on creativity.
● Pop
○ Looking at all of the tests, the time durations were always among the fastests.
○ Positively effect on motivation.
● Rock
○ During the memory test, it took the subjects, on average, more tries to match all the cards.
○ Negatively effect on memory.
Questions?