Effects of five-minutes music intervention on college students’ memory

This study aimed to investigate the impact of five-minutes of music on types of memory in college students. Sixty-nine students successfully completed the study, they were randomly assigned to either a control group or an intervention group. This study was two days long, and the intervention (listening to five minutes of Oriental Jazz music) was applied in the second day. We assessed short-term visual memory (immediate recall and five-minute delayed recall) with Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test, short-term verbal-auditory memory (immediate recall and ten-minute delayed recall) with Rey Audio-Verbal Learning test, Working memory with forward and backward Digit Span test, and false memory with Deese-Roediger-McDermott test. Results showed that the intervention did not cause any significant effect on the recall of verbal information, on working memory performance, or on the incidence of false memories. However, music had a positive impact on visual memory. This study suggests the possible positive impact of music if used in educational settings aligned with visual teaching methods.