BLOG #19

Sara Paczkowski

Research Proposal

INTRODUCTION:

Some may say that remembering a song has to do with this melody, repetition and tune but other studies show that this is not always true. There are studies that show that melody and tune have no contribution towards memorization. In my research I will explore how melody is associated with how language phrases affect memorization.

Is it true that music is easy to remember because of its catchy chorus or melody? Do people choose to remember lyrics because they favor it more? Would someone be able to remember the words to a song that they didn’t like? Songs can be used as a pneumonic device but there is no research that says that songs will always help with long-term memory. In the following research, I will investigate how ulterior motives may have an effect on how individuals memorize lyrics.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

            Research conducted by Rainey and Larason, Two songs were song, "pop goes the weasel" and "yankee doodle" were played and measured the number of trials to learn the list initially and the number of trials to learn the list a week later. After coding and analyzing, the researched concluded that there was no advantage of the music but the participants, but the individuals who heard the sung version required fewer trials to relearn them.

After the lyrics were read with no rhythm, read with influence of rhythm and read with rhythm and beat, there was no significant difference in verbatim recall of the total lyrics. The combination

of melody, rhythm and text is the promoter to relearn because of information but it doesn't measure long-term recall.

         In other research conducted by Whitney Sim’s, spoken words and sung words (at different paces) were played to participants and how accurately they recalled the words were recorded. She hypothesized, that the slower the song tempo was, the more likely it would be remembered. Contrary to her hypothesis, spoken words were remembered better than sung words.

        

In conclusion, no response of memory was due to presentation of rate. It pointed out that more the only meaningful memorizations of songs were when the text connected to a melody that was already known. Therefore, the more meaningful the text was, the more it created a difference in initial learning. Consequently, memorization did not have to do with pace or melody, but “dual-coding,” which is the combination of knowing a previous song with new words.