THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY

https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.2019.1602023

The differential effect of background music on memory

for verbal and visuospatial information
Claudia Echaidea,b, David del R
ıoc,d, and Javier Paciosa,c,d
a
Camilo Jos
e Cela University; bSt Charles Hospital; cComplutense University of Madrid; dTechnical
University of Madrid and Complutense University of Madrid

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Background music is a part of our everyday activities. Received 19 November 2018
Considerable evidence suggests that listening to music while Accepted 26 March 2019
performing cognitive tasks may negatively influence perform-
KEYWORDS
ance. However, other studies have shown that it can benefit
Background music; memory;
memory when the music played during the encoding of infor- verbal processing;
mation is also provided during the retrieval of that informa- visuospatial processing
tion, in the so-called context dependent memory effect. Since
controversial results may be attributed to the nature of the
material to be memorized, the aim of the present study is to
compare the potential effect of consistent background music
on the immediate and long-term recall of verbal and visuo-
spatial information. Experiment 1 showed that instrumental
background music does not benefit nor decrease recall of
a list of unrelated words, both at the immediate and the
48-hours-delayed tests. By contrast, Experiment 2 revealed
that the same background music can impair immediate and
therefore long-term memory for visuospatial information.
Results are interpreted in terms of competition for neurocog-
nitive resources, with tasks mostly relying on the same brain
hemisphere competing for a limited set of resources. Hence,
background music might impair visuospatial memory to a
greater extent than verbal memory, in the context of limited
capacity cognitive system. In conclusion, the nature of the
material to be learnt must be considered to fully understand
the effect of background music on memory.

Introduction
Nowadays, background music is constantly present in our everyday lives.
We hear it in the supermarket, in the car, in elevators or at home, but
there are certain circumstances in which background music can be more
beneficial than others. Although music has been proven to have a positive
effect on emotion and motoric behavior, it also seems to have a detrimental

CONTACT Javier Pacios [email protected] Department of Experimental Psychology, Psychological

Processes and Speech Therapy, Complutense University of Madrid, Pozuelo de Alarc
on, Spain.
This manuscript is not under consideration for publication by any other journal, and none of the authors has
conflicts of interest.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/vgen.
ß 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 C. ECHAIDE ET AL.

effect on cognitive performance and particularly on memory (K€ampfe,

Sedlmeier, & Renkewitz, 2011). Background music has been considered a
distractor for complex mental work (Smith, 1961), especially in tasks that
require a conscious effort such as reading (Treisman, 2006). Indeed, there
is evidence suggesting that background music, as well as background
speech and other irrelevant noises, can disrupt short-term verbal and spa-
tial retention by competing for processing resources (R€ oer, Bell, &
Buchner, 2014b, 2014a, Salam
e & Baddeley, 1987, 1989; Schlittmeier,
Hellbr€uck, & Klatte, 2008; Tremblay, Parmentier, Hodgetts, Hughes, &
Jones, 2012). However, there is some evidence that suggests the opposite.
Smith (1961) showed that background music could benefit memory by
what he called context-dependent memory. It occurs when traces of the
environmental context are encoded along with information that is being
memorized (Grant et al., 1998). When the same context is provided during
retrieval, it will act as a memory cue and increase memory recall
(Abernethy, 1940; Grant et al., 1998; Smith, 1979). Hence, factors influenc-
ing whether background music might have a detrimental or beneficial effect
in the learning of new material warrant further research. The present study
considers whether stimulus modality (verbal vs visuospatial) interacts with
background music modulating memory performance.
As previously discussed, most authors seem to conclude that background
music impairs mental work. However, many authors found positive results
for memory performance when the music that was played at the encoding
and retrieval phase remained the same (Isarida, Kubota, Nakajima, &
Isarida, 2017; Mead & Ball, 2007), in accordance with the context-depend-
ent memory effect. But there are still some inconsistent findings. For
example, Balch, Bowman, & M€ ohler (1992) found that background music
was not beneficial in long-term recall (48 h between the immediate recall
and long term recall), even though it did have positive results in immedi-
ate memory.
A source of variability that may account for contradictory results in these
studies had to do with the type of music. Felix (1993) reviewed studies that
tested whether background music affects learning. The reported studies var-
ied on the type of music presented to the participants and the tasks to be
performed (paired-associate learning being one of them). Felix concluded
that music played during learning affects performance positively, especially
when the music played concerned baroque and classical pieces. Other stud-
ies using background music at both encoding and retrieval determined that
relaxing music was more helpful when performing cognitive tasks (Cassidy
& MacDonald, 2007). Indeed, the mood state induced by the tempo of
background music seems to serve as a memory cue that improves listeners’
performance (Balch & Lewis, 1996), in accordance with Eich’s theory of
 THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 3

Mood Dependent Memory (Eich, 1980, 1995). Isarida et al. (2017), however
conducted a similar experiment in which they found an effect of back-
ground dependent memory but no mood mediation. Nevertheless, mood
state seems to be not the only factor involved in this memory process. In
his Mental Context Hypothesis, Smith (1995) argues that the context is
actually composed by a number of factors (e.g. mood state, place, etc.) that
are processed as a whole, which we refer to as context. So when all these
factors are presented together, they work as a cue for what was memorized
in that context.
But, to fully understand the effect of background music on the perform-
ance of a memory task, the neurocognitive aspects of simultaneously proc-
essing music and memory material, and the possible kind of interference
processes involved, should be considered. Most studies exploring the effect
of context on memory use verbal material for the memory task, such as
lists of words (Hockley, 2008; Smith & Manzano, 2010), an article whose
content had to be memorized (Grant et al., 1998), or a test for college stu-
dents (Saufley, Otaka, & Bavaresco, 1985). It is known that the vast major-
ity of people have left hemispheric dominance for language processing
(Frith, Friston, Liddle, & Frackowiak, 1991; Knecht et al., 2000; Vigneau
et al., 2006), especially right-handed people. The right hemisphere, how-
ever, is dominant for processing of visual-spatial relations (e.g. Benton &
Tranel, 1993; Corballis, 2003). Evidence also suggests that music processing
seems to preferentially rely on the right hemisphere, especially for people
with no formal musical training (Bever & Chiarello, 1974; Ono et al., 2011;
Santosa, Hong, & Hong, 2014), although some elements, such as tone proc-
essing or the ability to read and analyze music, seems to be more related to
the left hemisphere (Gordon, 1983).
Simultaneous performance of two tasks that are preferentially processed
by the same hemisphere may negatively affect the performance of at least
one of them (Kinsbourne & Hiscock, 1983). Indeed, this effect has been
previously reported in an experiment in which participants had to complete
a tactual maze using either the left or the right hand while listening to
music played in either one ear or another. Performance improved when
the music was in the ear contralateral to the hand used, particularly when
the music was played in the left ear and the maze was completed with the
right hand. More interesting, binaural music facilitated maze learning when
the right hand was used, by reducing interhemispheric competition from
the right hemisphere (McFarland & Kennison, 1988).
Whether the kind of material to learn can explain part of the variability
of results on the beneficial effect of using background music as context
during memory tasks is still an open question. In particular, the differential
effect of musical context on the encoding and retrieval of verbal and
4 C. ECHAIDE ET AL.

visuospatial material has not been studied to date. Consequently, in this

study we explored, through two interrelated experiments, whether instru-
mental background music differentially interacts with verbal (Experiment
1) or visuospatial information (Experiment 2), leading to a differential
memory performance in those tasks. We expect that recall of verbal mater-
ial will benefit from background music contextual effects, in the absence of
intrahemispheric competition, while visual recall will decrease when music
is presented on both encoding and recall phases, probably as a result of
intrahemispheric competition for resources in a limited capacity system.

Experiment 1
The first experiment explored the effect of background music on memory
for verbal material. Since processing of instrumental music preferentially
relies on the right hemisphere, it should not significantly compete for neu-
rocognitive resources at the encoding and recall of verbal memories.
Moreover, and according to context-dependent memory evidence, music
should act as a memory cue and enhance subsequent recall.

Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 60 volunteers (15 men and 45 women), non-
musicians, between 18 and 35 years old, and with no records of psycho-
logical or neurological disorders. None of them reported auditory
problems. All the participants completed an ad-hoc questionnaire, which
included questions about age, years of musical training, if they studied
using background music, and the Edinburg Handedness Inventory
(Oldfield, 1971), as reported in Table 1. All these participants scored lower
than 23 on the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, since volunteers with
higher scores were considered left-handed, and therefore were initially dis-
carded. Participants in the sample were randomly assigned to one of two

Table 1. Participant’s demographic information in experiment 1 and 2.

Background music Silence
Experiment 1: Verbal input
Age 22.47 (4.23) 23.80 (5.24)
Years of musical training 0.97 (2.51) 1.13 (3.06)
Edinburgh Handedness Scale 18.27 (3.25) 18.23 (3.04)
Experiment 2: Visuospatial input
Age 23.27 (5.53) 21.60 (3.07)
Years of musical training 1.17 (2.77) 1.47 (2.90)
Edinburgh Handedness Scale 16.63 (3.30) 18.87 (2.78)
Standard deviations are shown in parenthesis.
 THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 5

groups: Background music group (n ¼ 30) and Silence group (n ¼ 30). An

independent sample T-test was conducted to confirm that that both groups
were equivalent in age [t(58) ¼ 1.08, p ¼ .28].

Material
The verbal material consisted of a list of 16 words from Algarabel’s (1996)
database. This database provides a series of psycholinguistic indexes for
1917 Spanish words. Word frequency was on a scale ranging from 1 to
941, while subjective indices such as pleasantness, imageability, and con-
creteness were rated on a scale of 1 to 7 (1 lowest and 7 highest).
Requirements for the words to be included in the study were: a standard
length (mean amount of letters ¼ 5,50; sd ¼ 1,03; range from 4 to 8),
medium level of pleasantness (mean ¼ 3,52; sd ¼ 0,39; range from 2,94 to
4,08), medium frequency of use (mean ¼ 35,19; sd ¼ 5,96; range from 27
to 45). Also, standard imageability (mean ¼ 3,76; sd ¼ 0,92; range from 2,28
to 6,17) and medium level of concreteness (mean ¼ 4,08; sd ¼ 1,14; range
from 2,28 to 6,31). Words had no semantic or phonological relationship. A
fragment of the Piano Concert No. 24 on C minor from Mozart was used
as musical background. The first 2 min were selected and constantly
repeated, so that participants were exposed to a consistent context. The
volume remained the same for all participants.

Design
The experiment consisted of two sessions. During the first session, the list of
unrelated words was visually displayed on a laptop screen, at a rate of 4 s per
word, with an interstimulus interval of 2 s. Participants were told to pay
attention to all words and try to learn them. Following the encoding phase,
all participants answered a short questionnaire with demographic questions
and the Edinburgh Handedness Scale (Oldfield, 1971), which can be admin-
istered in 3–5 min. Then, an immediate free-recall test followed. During the
second session of the experiment, which took place 48 h later, participants
came back to the laboratory for a delayed free-recall test. In both recall tests,
participants were provided with a blank piece of paper and instructed to
write down all the words they remembered. No derivative of the words or
phonological differences were admitted as correct responses.
Participants in the Background music group listened to the above-
described musical piece through a set of circumaural headphones
(Sennheiser HD201, Sennheiser Electronic Corporation, USA) during the
encoding, the immediate recall and the 48 h delayed recall. Background
music started 10 s before the presentation of the first item of the list.
6 C. ECHAIDE ET AL.

Figure 1. Percentage of correct recalled words at the immediate and the long-term recall of
Experiment 1. Mean direct scores (out of a total of 16 to-be-remembered words) are shown at
the bottom of the corresponding bar. Error bars represent standard error of the mean.

Participants in the Silence group performed all sessions and stages

in silence.

Results
A mixed between-within subjects ANOVA was computed to explore the
effect of the background music on participants’ immediate and delayed
recall of the list of words previously encoded. Results, as illustrated in
Figure 1, showed a significant main effect of moment of recall [Wilks’
Lambda ¼ .42, F(1,58) ¼ 77.68, p < .0001, partial eta squared ¼ .57], with
lower performance at the delayed recall than at the immediate recall.
Neither the main effect of background music [F(1,58) ¼ .57, p ¼ .45, partial
eta squared ¼ .01] nor the interaction effect [F(1,58) ¼ .71, p ¼ .40, partial
eta squared ¼ .01] were significant.

Discussion
As expected, participants in the experiment remembered more words at the
immediate recall than on the delayed recall, regardless of the background
music. Although the delayed recall is probably determined by performance
at the immediate test, this result suggests that the memory trace weakened
from the encoding to the 48 h-time recall (Ebbinghaus, 1880; Jonides et al.,
2008; Murre & Dros, 2015).
 THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 7

Our results show that background music does not benefit nor decrease
recall, both at the immediate and delayed tests. Some authors have argued
that background music can induce mood states that may themselves serve
as contextual cues to improve memory (Balch & Lewis, 1996; Eich, 1980,
1995). However, it is possible that our design failed at inducing a particular
mood state. The time of exposure to the context, i.e. the background music,
was determined by the rate of presentation of the complete list of words,
which last for 1 min and 36 s. This time might not be enough to generate a
mood state robust enough to serve as a contextual cue (Eich, 1980, 1995).
Moreover, Smith’s (1995) mental context hypothesis, considers mood an
important factor that contributes to generate mental contexts. Therefore, it
seems reasonable that the mental context created through the present
design was not strong enough to modulate recall.
On the other hand, some authors have argued that background music
may act as a distraction for mental work and particularly for memory
(K€ampfe et al., 2011; Konecni, 1982; Treisman, 2006). Although back-
ground music in this experiment did not benefit memory, participants who
learned with background music did not obtain lower results either.
Background music in our design consisted of a classical piece with no lyr-
ics, while memory items were unrelated words. According to some authors,
instrumental music does not include a distracting element for phonological
information that could compete for neurocognitive resources, thus leaving
room for processing verbal information (J€ancke, Br€ ugger, Brummer,
Scherrer, & Alahmadi, 2014).
These issues considered altogether may account for the absence of back-
ground music effects at immediate or long-term memory recall for verbal
material consisting on unrelated word lists. A short exposure to background
music would have limited the formation of a context strong enough to serve
as a memory cue. At the same time, the absence of significant competition
for neurocognitive resources, given the differential contribution of right and
left hemispheres in the processing of background music and verbal material,
may have prevented background music to impair memory for the list of
words. If this had been the case, the same experimental design, but using
visuospatial material, should yield different results in terms of the effect of
background music on recall. Visuospatial processing relies strongly on the
right hemisphere and might be more influenced by background music than
verbal processing. This was the focus of Experiment 2.

Experiment 2
In the second experiment, the experimental design remained the same, but
the list of items to be learnt and recalled was modified. Research back in
8 C. ECHAIDE ET AL.

the 90s had shifted to a more moderate view on the differential processing
of each hemisphere (Martinez et al., 1997; Mehta & Newcombe, 1991).
However, later evidence has rekindled the classical belief by reporting right
hemisphere advantages in tasks that require visuospatial processing (e.g.
Corballis, 2003; Ng et al., 2000). Thus, unlike in Experiment 1, where unre-
lated words were used, a series of geometrical figures were presented to
participants in this experiment. Considering that the right hemisphere is
engaged in the processing of instrumental music and visuospatial patterns
to a greater extent than the left hemisphere, participants who learned and
recalled while listening to background music should experience greater
competition for neurocognitive resources and therefore lower recall scores
than those in the group who perform the test in silence.

Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 60 volunteers (15 men and 45 women), non-musi-
cians, between 18 and 35 years old, and with no records of psychological,
neurological, or auditory disorders. All the participants completed the ad-
hoc questionnaire described in Experiment 1, and results are reported in
Table 1. As in Experiment 1, all participants scored lower than 23 on the
Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, since volunteers with higher scores were
initially discarded. The final sample consisted of 60 right-handed partici-
pants who were randomly assigned to one of two groups: Background
music group (n ¼ 30) and Silence group (n ¼ 30). As in Experiment 1,
results from independent sample T-test confirmed that both groups of par-
ticipants were equivalent in age [t (58) ¼ 1.44, p ¼ .15].

Material
The visual material consisted of a list of 7 geometrical figures selected from
the Visual Reproduction test from Wechsler Memory Scale III (Wechsler,
1997). The same musical piece, consisting of a fragment of the Piano
Concert No. 24 on C minor from Mozart, was provided as background
music in the corresponding group of participants.

Design
As in Experiment 1, the procedure consisted of two sessions. During the
first session, the list of 7 geometrical figures was visually displayed on a
laptop screen, at a rate of 10 s per figure, with an inter-stimulus interval of
2 s. Participants were instructed to pay attention to each figure and try to
 THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 9

learn them. After completing the short demographic questionnaire and the
Edinburgh Handedness Scale (Oldfield, 1971), they all underwent an imme-
diate free-recall test. Forty-eight hours later, participants came back to the
laboratory to perform a delayed free-recall test. In both recall tests, partici-
pants were provided with a blank piece of paper and instructed to draw all
the figures they remembered. Criteria from the WMS-III correction manual
was followed to consider responses as correct. Each image on the Visual
Reproduction scale in the WMS III is scored by points. The simplest figure
is scored with a total of 3 points, and it reaches a total of 7 points for the
more complex figures. To consider each participant’s response correct, they
had to have a full score in all the criteria given by the WMS III. If this was
the case, each correct image counted as 1 and as, mentioned earlier, there
were 7 images in total. According to the design in Experiment 1, partici-
pants in the Background music group listened to the above described
musical piece through a set of circumaural headphones (Sennheiser
HD201, Sennheiser Electronic Corporation, USA) during the encoding, the
immediate recall, the 48 h delayed recall and the recognition stage.
Background music started 10 s before the presentation of the first item of
the list. Participants in the Silence group performed all sessions and stages
in silence.

Results
Results from a mixed between-within subjects ANOVA (background music
x recall), as illustrated in Figure 2, revealed a significant main effect of
moment of recall [Wilks’ Lambda ¼ .69, F(1,58) ¼ 25.76, p < .0001, partial
eta squared ¼ .30], with lower performance at the delayed recall than at the
immediate recall. More interesting, the main effect of background music
was also significant [F(1,58) ¼ 9.94, p < .005, partial eta squared ¼ .14], with
the Background music group performing worse than the Silence group.
The interaction effect was not significant [F(1,58) ¼ .92, p ¼ .34, partial
eta squared ¼ .01].

Discussion
In accordance with Experiment 1, participants in this experiment also
remembered more geometrical figures at the immediate recall than on the
delayed recall, regardless of the background music, suggesting that visuo-
spatial memories are also vulnerable to forgetting (Wang & Thomas, 1992).
Besides, background music does not seem to benefit recall of geometrical
figures. Since the purpose for the current experiment was to assess the
effect of competition for neurocognitive resources between background
10 C. ECHAIDE ET AL.

Figure 2. Percentage of correct recalled geometrical figures at the immediate and the long-
term recall of Experiment 2. Mean direct scores (out of a total of 7 to-be-remembered figures)
are shown at the bottom of the corresponding bar. Error bars represent standard error of
the mean.

music and visuospatial material, the experimental set was maintained as

close as possible to that of Experiment 1, with the exception of the learned
and recalled material. As in Experiment 1, the time of exposure to musical
context was brief, hindering the generation of a strong context that could
act as a cue to improve recall (Eich, 1980, 1995; Smith, 1995). In this
experiment, however, a significant difference between the Background
music group and the Silence group did appear. Participants who completed
the task with background music performed poorly at the immediate and
the delayed recall, when compared with the volunteers who complete the
memory task in silence. These results suggest that background music might
exert a significant detrimental influence for visuospatial learning.
In non-musicians, as participants in these experiments, music tends to
engage to a higher extent right hemisphere resources (Bever & Chiarello,
1974; Ono et al., 2011; Santosa et al., 2014). Similarly, visuospatial process-
ing has historically been linked to the right hemisphere (e.g. Benton, 1969;
Benton & Tranel, 1993). Although subsequent research has tempered this
statement (Martinez et al., 1997; Mehta & Newcombe, 1991), more recent
research has retaken the view of the right-hemisphere dominance for visuo-
spatial processing (e.g. Corballis, 2003; Ng et al., 2000).
Because music and visuospatial information are preferentially processed
by the right hemisphere, simultaneously processing background music and
geometrical figures seemed to have disrupted learning and retrieval of the
 THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 11

latter. Long-term recall was also worse in the Background music group
than in the Silence group. However, the absence of a significant interaction
between background music and moment-of-recall ruled out an effect of
background music on visuospatial memory consolidation. Instead, the
lower performance of participants who gave the 48 h delayed recall while
listening to background music seems to reflect an extension of the effect at
the immediate recall. In other words, if participants in this group remem-
ber fewer items at the immediate recall, it is predictable that they will
remember fewer in the long-term recall, when compared with those in the
Silence group.

General discusion and conclusion

Background music is nowadays constantly present in our daily activities.
However, whether listening to music while accomplishing other tasks
results is beneficial or not has been under debate for decades. A meta-
analysis on this matter has revealed a large variability of results that are
mainly explained by factors such as the style of background music, the
type of concurrent task or the mood state experienced by the listener
(K€ampfe et al., 2011). The present study focused on the effect of back-
ground music, when provided as a consistent context, on short- and
long-term memory for verbal and visuospatial information. Particularly, a
major aim was to test whether part of the variability of results on the
effect of background music on memory could be attributed to competi-
tion for neurocognitive resources between music and verbal or visuo-
spatial material, as suggested by previous work in motor cognition
(McFarland & Kennison, 1988).
In accordance with this conception, background music hindered the
immediate recall of geometrical figures, but not of unrelated words, pre-
sumably as a result of the higher competition for neurocognitive resources
between music and visuospatial processing. Research back in the 90 s had
shifted to a more moderate view on the differential processing of each
hemisphere (Martinez et al., 1997; Mehta & Newcombe, 1991). However,
later evidence based on neuroimaging and lesional approaches support the
conception of left hemisphere dominance for verbal material and right
hemisphere control in the processing of visuospatial information (e.g.
Corballis, 2003; Ng et al., 2000), particularly in right-handed individuals.
Similarly, instrumental music processed as one and not divided into differ-
ent elements, seems to be mainly right-lateralized (Bever & Chiarello, 1974;
Ono et al., 2011; Santosa et al., 2014). Therefore, simultaneous engagement
in both listening to music and memorizing visuoespatial material may
induce competition for resources in a limited capacity system (Jansen,
12 C. ECHAIDE ET AL.

Fl€oel, Menke, Kanowski, & Knecht, 2005) and result in poor performance
in the memory task (McFarland & Kennison, 1988).
Nevertheless, there is another factor that may explain the difference in per-
formance between visuospatial and verbal memory tasks. Recent research has
proposed that the limited capacity of the cognitive system as a whole may
explain the detrimental effect of memory performance while simultaneously
listening to background music (Lehmann & Seufert, 2017). In other words,
listening to background music could deteriorate memory performance
because of competition for resources, regardless of the type of music and
material in the memory task. Therefore, result in Experiment 2 could be due
to the visuospatial task being more difficult than the recall of words. This
would be a plausible and simpler alternative interpretation to the one based
on intra-hemispheric competition. However, a thorough inspection of mem-
ory performance in the present experiments rules out this alternative explan-
ation. Looking at participants who underwent the task with no background
music, those who learned and recalled the series of geometrical figures per-
formed above 60% at the immediate recall, while volunteers who learnt and
recall the list of words recall about 40% of words in the same test. This pat-
tern, which still appeared at long-term recall, suggests that the visuospatial
memory task was equally hard, if not easier, than the verbal task.
Consequently, detrimental effect of background music exclusively on mem-
ory for visuospatial material cannot be explained by higher demands of this
particular task. Further experiments should experimentally manipulate the
degree of intrahemispheric competition for verbal and visuospatial material
by using, for instance, different background sounds, in combination with
dichotic presentation designs. Additionally, subsequent research would bene-
fit from applying these experimental manipulations within the same group of
volunteers, in a repeated measures design. Furthermore, larger sample sizes
have to be used to be able to detect more subtle effects of background music
on memory performance. Finally, it is important to bear in mind that differ-
ent types of task within the same modality (i.e., verbal or visuospatial) may
not be affected by background music to the same extent. The significance of
material has been shown to modulate context-dependent memory (Smith,
Vela, & Williamson, 1988), so that meaningless material such as lists of non-
associated words (Godden & Baddeley, 1975; Hockley, 2008; Smith &
Manzano, 2010) or even full-length articles (Grant et al., 1998) may benefit
more from contextual cues than meaningful information like that required to
pass a college exam (Saufley et al., 1985). Thus, experiments addressing the
effect of background music and hemispheric competition on the recall of
previously learned meaningful materials are also needed to assess whether
the effects reported here are extendable to more complex and meaning-
ful materials.
 THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 13

In conclusion, these experiments suggest that part of the inconsistencies

of results regarding the effect of background music on performance of sim-
ultaneous memory tasks can be explained by competition for resources in
the processing of either verbal or visuospatial information. Moreover, the
present results suggest that such competition might constrain any putative
beneficial effects of background music for memory enhancement. Although
the music context did not seem to have a successful positive effect in our
experiments, some other studies have found positive effects of music in
learning. Considering that competition might hinder context-dependent
memory effects, future research on context-dependent memory should take
into account whether the memory material and contextual cues compete
for brain resources. More generally, this study highlights the importance of
taking into account the material to be learned when considering using
background music while learning.

ORCID
Javier Pacios http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0006-6184

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