The Effects of Background Music on the Encoding and Memory of Film

Date
1999
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Music
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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Award
Language
eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship between background music and filmed scenes, and whether the mood congruency between these two dimensions influences memory encoding processes. Seventy five Haverford College subjects were presented with a set of twelve scenes recorded from unfamiliar television shows and/or movies, and accompanied by twelve pieces of instrumental, equally unfamiliar musical arrangements. These film clips and melodies were either positive or negative in their affect and paired with one another in a mood congruent or incongruent fashion. Three different groups of subjects were asked to attend to either the scenes alone, or both. All subjects were then presented with three types of memory tasks: tune recognition, scene recall, and cued scene recognition tasks. It is predicted that mood congruent stimuli will be encoded in an integrated fashion, but that mood incongruent information will be encoded in an independent fashion. Results proved that asymmetrical incidental learning occurred; film interfered with the memory of music, but not vice versa. Results will be discussed regarding incidental learning and visual modality dominance.
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