Transcript Classical Music and Learning

Improve Your Cognitive
Abilities With Better
Learning Skills
Dr. John I. Paciorek
Classical Music and Learning
• If you listen to classical music, or any
music, will it improve your ability to
learn?
• What effect does walking around a
room or gesturing have on learning?
• Will sound, smells, and other sensory
experiences help the learner?
• Are distractions such as “noise”
detrimental to the learner?
• This session will examine some of
the research that has been done
in these and other areas to find
out what can be done to help the
learner to learn better.
• What is the “Mozart Effect?”
• The phrase “Mozart Effect” was first
used in 1991.
• It is the belief that classical music
improves a child’s intelligence.
• About 2 years after this term was
first used, a tremendous amount of
public interest was generated when
the journal “Nature” published
research results that seemed to
suggest that classical music does
improve learning.
• As a result of this research,
thousands of parents played classical
Mozart music to their children with
the expectation that it would
improve their brainpower.
• Zell Miller, the Governor of Georgia,
was so convinced of its effectiveness
that in 1998 he asked for money to
purchase Classical Music CDs for all
newborn babies in the state.
• Will listening to Mozart really
increase one’s intelligence?
• Let’s take a look at what the research
actually revealed on this topic.
• Researchers from the University of
California, Irvine who conducted this
study did not even use the term
“Mozart Effect.”
• The research was conducted on
young adults, not children.
• Only 36 students participated.
• On 3 occasions the students were
given a series of mental tasks to
complete.
• Before each task, they experienced
10 minutes of:
1. Silence
2. A tape of relaxation instructions
3. Mozart’s Sonata for 2 pianos in D
Major
• What were the results?
• The students who listened to Mozart
did better at tasks where they had to
create shapes in their minds.
• For a short time they were better at
spatial tasks where they had to look
at folded pieces of paper with cuts in
them and to predict how they would
appear unfolded.
• But--this effect only lasted 15
minutes.
• Other similar research followed.
• Listening to music did lead to a
temporary improvement in learning
but the benefits were short-lived.
• The research also showed that
Mozart was not so special. Other
classical musicians like Schubert
were just as good as Mozart.
• Even reading a passage from a
Stephen King Novel out loud
produced similar results.
• In 2006 research was conducted on
8,000 children in Britain.
• These children listened to:
– 10 minutes of Mozart
– A discussion about the experiment
– A sequence of 3 Pop Songs
The children who listened to Mozart did
well BUT the results with Pop Music were
even better.
• This research seems to suggest that
it was not so much Mozart’s music
but a cognitive arousal brought on by
the music.
• To get your mind more activated you
need to know the kind of music that
appeals to the learner.
• In fact, it does not have to be music.
• Anything that makes you more alert
should work just as well.
• There is a way in which music can
make a difference to your IQ.
However, it requires considerably
more effort than playing a CD.
• Learning to play a musical
instrument can benefit the brain.
• A year of piano lessons along with
regular practice can increase one’s IQ
by as much as 3 points according to
research at the Western University in
London, Ontario.
• Other Sounds and the Mind
• What are “earworms” or
“brainworms?”
• An earworm, sometimes known as a
brainworm,[1] is a catchy piece of
music that continually repeats
through a person’s mind after it is no
longer playing (Wikipedia).
• “Earworms” or “brainworms” may be
similar to something called
“incidental learning?”
• Dr. Robert Gagne describes
Incidental Learning as that type of
learning which occurs without the
learner intentionally trying to learn.
• The interesting thing about
earworms is that they are part of our
mind that is largely out of our
control.
• Neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote in his
book Musicophilia that earworms are
a clear sign of “the overwhelming,
and at times, helpless, sensitivity of
our brains to music.”
• Music is defined by repetition, just
like earworms, and this might make
them hard to forget.
• They are musical memories that
loop, say a particular verse or a hook,
forever repeating rather than
running to completion.
• Earworms have a little twist or
peculiarity, something that makes
them “catchy”, and perhaps this is a
clue as to why they can take hold of
our memory system.
• They are a phenomenon of longterm memory.
• Researchers have also identified
them as part of our short-term
memory where they are kept alive
long enough for us to focus on them.
• Our short-term memory also has sub
systems.
• One sub-system is known as the
“mind’s eye” which captures visual
information.
• A 2nd sub-system is the “inner ear”
which is the part we use for
remembering phone numbers.
• This 2nd sub-system is the part that
seems to get infected with
earworms.
• We lack control over earworms that
get stuck in our inner ear.
• Our inner ear is a vital part of our
cognitive process for remembering
and rehearsing sounds.
• Since it is not under our control then
trying to forget it will not work.
• By purposely trying to forget it you
have to recall it which further imbeds
it into your long term memory.
• Earworms or brainworms may have
both good and bad qualities.
• As reported by WebMD:
• "Songs with lyrics are reported as
most frequently stuck (74%),
followed by commercial jingles (15%)
and instrumental tunes without
words (11%)," (Dr. James Kellaris)
• "On average, the episodes last over a
few hours and occur 'frequently' or
'very frequently' among 61.5% of the
sample.”
Students' top-10 earworm list:
• Other (you pick). Everyone has his or
her own worst earworm.
• Chili's "Baby Back Ribs" jingle.
• "Who Let the Dogs Out"
• "We Will Rock You"
Students' top-10 earworm list (cont.):
• Kit-Kat candy-bar jingle ("Gimme a
Break ...")
• "Mission Impossible" theme
• "YMCA"
• "Whoomp, There It Is"
• "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
• "It's a Small World After All”
Using Your Body to Learn
• If you want to learn quicker, use your
body.
• Researchers already know that
learning is easier, quicker, and longer
lasting if lessons involve the body as
well as the mind.
• This includes gesturing with the arms
or moving around a room.
• Many people, especially children,
lack the ability to think abstractly.
They depend upon physical objects
to help them solve problems.
• Conventional thinking might suggest
that teachers should help wean
children off physical objects and
body gestures to prepare them for
the adult world.
• Actually, the physical world is a very
important component of learning.
• Spencer Kelly, a psychologist at
Colgate University in Hamilton, NY
found that people spend 3 times as
much time gesturing when they think
it is particularly important that they
get a message across.
• It suggests that, at the subconscious
level, people appreciate the
communicative value of our body
language.
• Spencer Kelly also found evidence
that people like a teacher better
when they use arm and hand
movements to emphasize points.
• Research shows that young children
learn more if their teacher uses
gestures when explaining a concept.
• Susan Cook, a psychologist at the
University of Iowa, found that
children pick up new concepts more
effectively if they are taught to
mirror and repeat the gestures their
teacher uses.
• Also, lessons involving words and
gestures live longer in a student’s
memory than lessons using words
alone.
• New technical devices like the
Nintendo Wii, the Xbox, and touchscreen tablet PCs that use kinetic
sensors to determine gestures and
body motion have been shown to
help learners to learn better.
• They help the learner to develop a
better concept of proportions such
as when one plant grows faster than
another one.
• Researchers at Eberhard Karis
University in Germany found that 7
year olds can place numbers more
accurately along a line between 0
and 100 if they physically walk the
line on a floor.
• The lessons we learn at school
usually involve a declarative memory
which are facts that we can
consciously recall or ‘declare’ at a
later date, for example: definitions.
• However, some of our memories are
non-declarative or things we can
remember without really being able
to explain why.
• The classic example is how we never
forget how to ride a bike.
• Psychologist Susan Cook from the
University of Iowa states: “In every
study that we’ve tested the
importance of gesturing, we’ve
found it works…even in the
experimental settings where we
thought gesturing wouldn’t work.”
What influence do our senses have on
boosting learning power?
• Research is revealing that smells and
sounds can have a significant impact
on learning, performance, and
creativity.
• Studies over the past 15 years reveal
that children attending schools
under the flight paths of large
airports lag behind in their exam
results.
• Bridget Shield, professor of acoustics
at London South Bank University and
Julie Dockrell at the Institute of
Education have studied the effects of
all sorts of noises such as traffic &
sirens as well as noise generated by
children.
• The results show that “noise”
negatively impacts a child’s
performance, in numeracy (the
ability to reason and fundamental
mathematics), literacy, & spelling.
• “Noise” seems to have an especially
detrimental effect on children with
special needs.
• Professor Shield says the sound of
“babble”-the chatter of other
children, is particularly distracting in
the classroom.
• These studies suggest that Children
in so called “open-plan classrooms”
may not do as well in school because
of the “babble.”
• Professor Shield says that “people
are very distracted by speechparticularly if it’s understandable,
but you’re not involved in it.
• This phenomenon is also known as
the irrelevant speech effect.
• Shield says: “it’s a very common
finding in open-plan offices as well.”
• Open-plan offices may similarly
negatively impact your performance.
• Background noises may or may not
be beneficial depending upon the
type of noise and the volume.
• Ravi Mehta at the College of Business
at Illinois studied creativity &
background noises like coffee-shop
chatter and construction-site drilling
at different volumes.
• Creativity was best at medium levels.
Loud background noise damaged
creativity.
• Psychologist Dr. Nick Perham at
Cardiff Metropolitan University in the
UK says that the most distracting
sounds tend to be variable.
• When there is not much acoustical
variation there is not much to
capture your attention (steady hum).
• There may be some benefit from
playing music or other sounds in an
art class or other situations where
creativity is key (medium arousal).
• Music is not always helpful while you
are trying to work.
• Trying to perform a task which
involves serial recall (mental
arithmetic) will be impaired by
sounds with acoustic variation, which
includes most types of music.
• Songs with lyrics are more likely to
interfere with tasks that involve
semantics such as reading
comprehension.
• Research suggests that smells can
help with cognitive performance.
• Psychologist Mark Moss at
Northumbria University studied the
effect of smells on cognition using
rosemary & lavender.
• Those who smelled lavender did
significantly worse in working
memory tests & had impaired
reaction times for both memory and
attention-based tasks.
• Those in the rosemary group did
much better than a control group
with memory tasks but their reaction
times were slower.
• Smells affect memory since the
brain’s olfactory bulb is intimately
linked to the hippocampus which is
associated with learning.
• Subjects smelling rosemary had
elevated levels of 1,8-cineole which
increases brain cell communication.
• Jerome Bruner is a psychologist who
focused much of his research on the
cognitive development of children
and how it relates to education.
While he has made many
contributions to the field of
psychology, his greatest
contributions have been in the
educational field.
• Jerome Bruner theorized that
learning occurs by going through 3
stages of representation. Each stage
is a "way in which information or
knowledge are stored & encoded in
memory" (Mcleod, 2008)
• From: http://brunersstages.wikispaces.com/Bruner's+Stag
es+of+Representation
Jerome Bruner
• The stages are more-or-less
sequential, although they are not
necessarily age-related like Piagetbased theories. Going through the
stages is essential to truly
understanding the concept, as it
helps the learner understand why.
• 1. enactive (action-based)
• Sometimes called the concrete stage,
this first stage involves a tangible
hands-on method of learning. Bruner
believed that "learning begins with
an action - touching, feeling, and
manipulating" (Brahier, 2009, p. 52).
• 1. enactive (action-based)
• In mathematics education,
manipulatives are the concrete
objects with which the actions are
performed. Common examples of
manipulatives used in this stage in
math education are algebra tiles,
paper, coins, etc. - anything tangible.
2. iconic (image-based)
• Sometimes called the pictoral stage,
this second stage involves images or
other visuals to represent the
concrete situation enacted in the
first stage.
2. iconic (image-based)
• One way of doing this is to simply
draw images of the objects on paper
or to picture them in one's head.
Other ways could be through the use
of shapes, diagrams, and graphs.
• 3. symbolic (language-based)
• Sometimes called the abstract stage,
the last stage takes the images from
the second stage and represents
them using words and symbols. The
use of words and symbols "allows a
student to organize information in
the mind by relating concepts
together" (Brahier, 2009, p. 53).
• 3. symbolic (language-based)
• The words and symbols are
abstractions, they do not necessarily
have a direct connection to the
information.
• For example, a number is a symbol
used to describe how many of
something there are, but the number
in itself has little meaning without
the understanding of it.
3. symbolic (language-based)
• Other examples would be variables
such as x or y, or mathematical
symbols such as +, -, /, etc.
• Finally, language and words are
another way to abstractly represent
the idea. In the context of math, this
could be the use of words such as
addition, infinite, the number 3, etc.
Educational Trends in School
• Wall Street Journal Article March 11,
2014: “Shaking Up the Classroom;
Schools Scrap Age-Based Grade
Levels, Basing Promotion on Mastery
of Material”
• Called competency-based learning,
it is based on the idea that students
learn at their own pace and should
earn credits and advance after they
master the material—not just
because they have spent a year in a
certain class.
• Students are expected to take the
initiative to learn on their own with
their teacher facilitating a learning
environment conducive to learning.
• They must prove that they have
mastered the material before they
can move on to the next level.
• If students are aware of what
learning methods work best for them
then they can get the maximum
benefit from their education.
• We are living in the Information Age.
• Today learners are subjected to such
a tremendous amount of information
at any given time that each sense, or
a combination of senses (see, feel,
touch, hear, taste) can easily be
overwhelmed.
• Information overload is a serious
problem for the learner.
• An important key to learning is to
manage the stimuli the learner is
constantly being subjected to.
• Stimulation that is too little or
inappropriate for the learner leads to
boredom and loss of interest; too
much leads to information overload.
• In order for it to be effective and
beneficial it must be meaningful and
appropriate for the learner.
Hacking Knowledge: 77 Ways to Learn
Faster, Deeper, and Better
• Feb 28, 2014
• oedb.org/ilibrarian/hackingknowledge/
• by Ellyssa Kroski: Director of
Information Technology at the NY
Law Institute and is a highly regarded
writer, speaker and digital librarian
who has contributed to a variety of
publications like Library Journal.