Passively listening to Mozart’s sonata K. 448 enhances verbal working memory performance: a quantitative EEG study

Abstract Studies exploring the effects of music on cognitive processes in humans, particularly classical music compositions such as Mozart’s Sonatas, have emphasized its positive effects of music listening on mood and different cognitive functions. The current investigation intended to evaluate the impact of passively listening to Mozart’s Sonata K448 on emotional, cognitive, and brain activity parameters in adult healthy participants. Following the music-listening period (9:26 min) employed in the experimental versus a control group without musical stimulation, participants immediately completed a mood questionnaire followed by a working memory (WM) task with online event-related EEG acquisition. The experimental group demonstrated higher WM performance scores versus the control group. Quantitative EEG (qEEG) analysis under frontoparietal electrodes indicated significantly lower mean beta power during rest, encoding, and retention time-windows under the left prefrontal F7 electrode in the experimental group versus controls. In addition, music-listening resulted in higher frontal alpha power in the experimental group compared to the control group during WM-encoding intervals. These findings may have valuable applications in the clinical settings, supporting the integration of musical interventions in the treatment of various neurodevelopmental populations to enhance working memory functioning, stabilize mood, and to optimize verbal WM functioning.