Whole, half, quarter and eighth notes — they rise and fall, denoting pitch, speed and length with each stem and flag. And when added together, when composed into a score, they produce a sound unique to that sequence.
They produce songs that play on repeat to idle minds, or even ones trying to concentrate on studying.
These musical notes, though they have lasted through centuries, could be the very influences that impede concentration, memorization and retention.
“Any kind of distraction is going to impair performance,” James Kalat, a psychology professor, said.
Kalat pointed out a study conducted on participants writing essays — the researchers, he said, asked participants to tap their feet at a progressively faster pace while writing.
“The faster they tapped, the less sense their essays made,” he said.
However, Kalat said music can help with concentration under some circumstances.
“If you’ve got a lot of other distracting information going on around you, if you listen to some music that tunes out the interference, that is a possibility,” he said.
Chris Mayhorn, an associate psychology professor, said, if students do listen to music while they study, it should be purely instrumental music — no vocals.
“When people are studying, they’re trying to internalize a lot of their own thoughts,” Mayhorn said. “If there is music with vocals, that’s going to interfere with the ability to really focus on what they’re thinking and retain that information.”
When studying, Mayhorn said he follows his own advice.
“The only time I’m listening to music is when I’m driving,” he said. “If I’m trying to take in some information that I know I’m going to have to relate later, I don’t listen to any music with vocals in it.”
Both Rakita Henry and Tiffany Bowman, freshmen in First Year College, said they prefer to study without music to allow for better concentration.
Distractions, however, do occur.
“The only time I listen to music is when it’s on the TV — like if there’s a song on BET,” Bowman said. “The TV’s on when I study. I usually flip back and forth through the channels.”
Though she listens to music rarely when studying, Henry said some songs do inevitably catch her attention and draw her away from a focused state.
“It depends on what song it is,” she said. “Sometimes I get involved in lyrics rather than concentrating.”
But hardly ever parting from his MP3 player, Rikito Ogawa, a sophomore in First Year College, said he listens to rock music every time he studies.
“I don’t concentrate at all,” he said. “It’s a lot better to have something to focus on than just nothing, though.”
For better fact-retention, Kalat recommends associating the topic — such as vocabulary words or historical dates — with an interesting or entertaining subject.
“The more ways you think about the meaning of what you’re trying to remember — if you think about things you know and things you care about — you’ll find it easier to recall later,” Kalat said.
For example, people who care about and closely follow sports, he said, will find it easier to remember figures and statistics related to individual games or players.
The science behind this occurrence, Kalat said, is linked to norepinephrine — a chemical the brain produces and releases when it recognizes something pleasing or amusing. When stimulated, he said, the brain’s amygdala also functions to aid in memorization.
“The amygdala will get your arousal going in ways that will enhance your likelihood of remembering anything,” Kalat said.
Looking beyond the brain’s scientific functions, Barbara Windom, director of the Tutorial Center, said students’ musical preference and fact absorption is decided by each person’s unique learning style.
“It’s really individualistic,” Windom said. “Some students will say they study best with classical music; others with rock — there’s not something with will works best with every student.”
To decide which method — music or no music — or which type of music works best, Windom advices students to test each method and see which works best for them.
“It’s really trial and error,” she said.
