This research differs from Kirkwegs as only two types of music will be used which are lyrical and non-lyrical. Also unlike Kirkwegs no false memories will be used.
Experimental Hypothesis – There will be a significant increase in the score on the word search in instrumental music compared to lyrical music.
Null Hypothesis – There will be no statically significant difference in the score on the word search in instrumental music compared to lyrical music.
Method
Design – Experimental method using repeated measures design and ratio data with two conditions
Condition 1 - lyrical Condition 2 – Instrumental (non-lyrical)
IV – types of music DV – Score on word search
Participants – 12 participants aged between 16-64 years (6 males/6 females) were asked to take part in the experiment. It was an opportunity sample as visitors to the experimenters’ home were used.
Procedure – Firstly the word searches on were made on a computer, and then the participants were approached as they entered the house and asked for their consent to take part. After agreeing they were sat down and told they would have 1 minute to complete the word search with firstly Oasis playing then gave them a 5 minute break before they did the second word search this time with Mozart playing again with 1 minute to complete. The results were then collected.
Controls – The same word searches, instructions and briefing were used. They were alone in the room when taking part and were each tested individually.
Materials – two word searches, a data collection table and standard instructions that were to have one minute to complete each word search and that they would have the music played at same level throughout.
Ethics – There were no ethical issues that occurred, as their results were kept anonymous and I debriefed them afterwards by telling the aim of the study and what their results would be used for.
Measurement and analysis – The scores were collected after one minute and recorded in a table. A table and bar chart were used to show the results that there wasn’t much difference in scores.
Results
Table 1 – Descriptive stats for lyrical and non-lyrical music
A bar chart showing the mean scores on word searches of lyrical music compared to non-lyrical music
The bar chart shows that there isn’t much difference between the two conditions lyrical scoring 11.25 and non-lyrical 11.33. The range is the better definer of the scores, showing a difference between lyrical (9) and non-lyrical (10).
Table 2 – Treatment of results
As the observed value of W (11.5) is less than the critical value (17) with a 5% level of significance, the null hypothesis is rejected and the experimental hypothesis that there will be a significant increase in the score on the word search in instrumental music compared to lyrical music is accepted.
Discussion
Kirkweg’s research indicated that performance was affected by classical music. However this research testing the effect of instrumental and lyrical music found that instrumental music helped performance as the null hypothesis was rejected and the experimental hypothesis that there will be a significant increase in the score on the word search in instrumental music compared to lyrical music was accepted.
The sample comprised of 12 people, which was a weakness as it could have give generalisation problems as they participants could have been very similar but a strength was that their was that the genders were spread evenly and so no gender bias occurred. Another strength is the age range and that would give a high generalisability as a wide range of ages from students to adults to OAP’s were used. It is also high as the participants were all from the local area and so can be generalised for the whole of the local area.
When using this sample no ethical guidelines were broken as the participants were informed about what they were doing, which was to complete two word searches one whilst having lyrical music playing in the background and another with instrumental music playing in the background and having one minute for each word search to do so. Then they were debriefed afterwards about how their results would be used and assured them their results would be confidential to the experimenter only.
A weakness was the repeated measures design as with this the participants can become fatigued especially as only 5 minutes rest was given in-between each word search and so they could still have be drained from the last word search. They could have also guessed the aim of the study and shown demand characteristics but this would be unlikely as loud music was played first and so perhaps they couldn’t have guessed to do worse then than in the next word search. Although as repeated measures were used it allows to have better conclusions from the results as it is a direct comparison between the participant’s results.
When conducting the experiment a change made could be to give participants longer than one minute, as many of the participants complained they didn’t have enough time although some did manage to find the 15 words within the minute. This also shows that the study has low ecological validity as it doesn’t relate to real life as you would normally have as much time as needed to complete something and normally would not have loud music playing in the background instead you would have natural noises occurring and so next time could compare that to music instead. This then could show that my results are not useful to real life although it could be used to show that what music you listen to doesn’t affect how well you remember something as the difference in mean scores was only 0.8.
The data collected was quantitative data which allows me to easily compare it and draw conclusions from it but it doesn’t give an insight into why people scored how they did, such as if they are good at word searches or didn’t have much sleep or if the music did really affect them and if they felt they could have done better without it. So a questionnaire could be used afterwards to allow them to comment on their performance, thus giving better conclusions on the experiment.
Appendix
Table of results for scores for lyrical and non-lyrical music in the word search task
References
Books
Coon, D. (1997). Essentials of Psychology. New York: Brooks/Cole Publishing.
Internet
- accessed on 18th June 07
http://www.holah.karoo.net/Wilcoxon%20Signed%20Rank.xls – accessed on 22nd June 07
