Online Casebook

How Does Music Affect Your Brain? Ashford University, Student Lifestyle, 7 June 2017,

www.ashford.edu/online-degrees/student-lifestyle/how-does-music-affect-your-brain

.Accessed 15 October 2017.

This article that appeared in one of Ashford Universitys blogs discusses how music can

affect your brain. When you listen to music, your brain reacts in many ways. There is a

dopamine rush, and your body creates more antibodies and other health-boosting cells.

Musicians also have been found to have an increased amount of grey matter, which boosts

auditory processing, learning, and memory. The article also includes information on what music

to listen to when studying. Either before a class or before studying, listening to upbeat music can

prep your brain for learning, but when you need to concentrate, like for studying, soothing,

instrumental music can benefit your concentration.

The authors purpose for writing the article is to inform students of the benefits that

music can have when they study. This article includes the results of different studies that show

how music can benefit your brain. This article is reliable because it is current. It was written

earlier this year, and cites other recent studies. The authors cite multiple studies throughout.

I will use the information in this article to show the benefits of music, and how it can be

used to improve the effectiveness of studying. This article shows how music can affect the brain,

and how different genres can have different effects.

Music and the Brain. Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center, University of California San

Diego, 2010, tdlc.ucsd.edu/research/highlights/rh-music-and-brain-2011.html. Accessed

15 October 2017.

This article was written about a conference of scientists. They all studied the effects that

music has on the brain. One group of scientists found that musicians are better than non-

musicians at finding small, split-second differences in the sounds and tones used in speech.

Another group tested to find a correlation between the ability of kids to synchronize in a piece of

music without any previous instruction and their ability to focus during school. The study found

a correlation, which prompted the beginning of another study to determine if the ability to focus

could be trained or learned like the ability to play together in an ensemble setting. One other

research team found that kids in preschool who had taken one to two years of music lessons

demonstrated a higher ability to remember and focus than those who did not.

This article was written to inform curious readers about different findings that were

shared during a conference that had occurred recently to the writing of the article. The author of

the article is somebody that attended the conference. The source is reliable because it cites

multiple studies.

This article will be useful in my paper because it will highlight the different effects that

music can have on the brain, and show how music could be used to benefit memory.

Music Has Powerful (and Visible) Effects on the Brain. ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 12 Apr.

2017, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170412181341.htm. Accessed 15 October

2017.
 This article describes the effects that music can have on a persons brain. It goes into

detail on how the persons preferences can alter how music affects them. When listening to

music that they liked, the persons brain function was improved, no matter what genre the music

was. When listening to music that they disliked, the studys participants were found to have

slightly lower connectivity in their brain, and when they listened to their favorite music, they had

the highest connectivity.

This article was written to inform people about how music can affect their brain function,

and how their preferences can affect the benefits that the music provides. This article is reliable

because it cites multiple studies, and it was written recently.

This article will provide support for my claim that listening to music of your choice is the

best way to improve the effectiveness of listening to music while studying.

Baker, Max. How Music Could Help You to Concentrate While Studying. The Independent,

Independent Digital News and Media, 2 Mar. 2016,

www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/Studies/how-music-could-help-you-to-

concentrate-while-studying-a6907341.html. Accessed 15 October 2017.

This article cites different studies that go into details on whether or not music helps you

study, and what type of music is best. The studies found that listening to music while studying is

more effective than having no music and listening to random background noise. When studying,

listening to calm, steady, and soft music can provide the most benefit. Personality can also

influence the type of music that benefits you the most. For example, if you get nervous for exams

or tests, listening to something calming can benefit you the most and help to calm you down.
 This article was written to inform students about the effects that music can have on the

effectiveness of their study time. This article is reliable because it is fairly recent, and it cites

multiple different studies.

I will use this article to show how music can affect your mood, and how different genres

can have different effects.

Baker, Mitzi. Music Moves Brain to Pay Attention, Stanford Study Finds. News Center,

Stanford School of Medicine, 1 Aug. 1970, med.stanford.edu/news/all-

news/2007/07/music-moves-brain-to-pay-attention-stanford-study-finds.html . Accessed

15 October 2017.

This article discusses the findings published by a study. It shows how music causes the

areas of the brain responsible for paying attention and making predictions to become more

active. The study shows how classical music can be very beneficial to brain function, and how

the way that it was composed helps your memory. When there is a transition in the music, which

happens more often in classical music than modern music, the listeners brain becomes very

active, which benefits memory.

This article was written to inform people of how classical music can benefit the listeners

memory more than modern music. This article is reliable because it cites the results from

multiple studies.

I will use the findings from the study to show ways that music can benefit memory, and

how it does.
Balch, William R., and Benjamin S. Lewis. "Music-Dependent Memory: The Roles of Tempo

Change and Mood Mediation." Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory

& Cognition, vol. 22, no. 6, Nov. 1996, p. 1354. EBSCOhost,

sinclair.ohionet.org:80/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db

=bth&AN=9703132350&site=eds-live.

This article is the findings of a study that tested to find a correlation between the type of

music and the tempo of the music with memory. The article also describes how the tempo of

music can affect the mood of the listener. The study found that faster tempos caused a lower

ability to focus, and did not benefit memory to the extent that slower tempos did. Music that had

a steady tempo was found to benefit memory more than music with an inconsistent melody did.

Slower tempos also had a more stress reducing effect than faster tempos.

This article was written to inform people of the results of a study that investigated the

effects that tempos had on memory, and mood. This article is reliable because it includes the

results of a scientific study, and it is included in the library databases, which means that it has

been checked for reliability and credibility.

I will use this article to show how different tempos of music can cause different effects

on memory, and how those changes can also affect mood. The effects on mood are important

because the music can calm the listener, and make studying more effective.

Isarida, Toshiko K., et al. "Reexamination of Mood-Mediation Hypothesis of Background-

Music-Dependent Effects in Free Recall." Quarterly Journal of Experimental

Psychology, vol. 70, no. 3, Mar. 2017, pp. 533-543. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1080/17470218.2016.1138975.
 This article describes the results of a study that examined how tempo and tonality can

affect memory. Participants in the study were given a list of 20 words, and were given five

seconds to memorize each word. After they memorized all the words, they waited 30 seconds

and were then asked to recall as many words as they could. During the time that they were

memorizing the words, waiting, and recalling the words, there was music playing. In one trial,

the music stayed the same throughout, in the second trial the music was changed to a different

song, but it had a similar tonality and tempo, and in the third trial the music was changed to a

different song with a different tonality and tempo. The study did not find a notable difference

between the participants ability to recall the words.

This article is reliable because it is the results of a recent study, and it is included in the

Sinclair Library databases.

I am going to use the finding in this study to support the use of music to improve

memory.