Table of ContentsIntroductionMethodParticipantsDesign and ProcedureResultsDiscussionIntroductionStudying is one of the biggest habits and demands among students. Students' preferences for background noise range from quiet sections of the library to the uplifting and calming music of coffee shops. While some students prefer to work in silence, others need music or another type of background noise to help them concentrate. For a large majority of students, background noises such as music have become essential to allow their cognitive abilities to focus on retaining information or completing in-depth lessons. Technological advancements such as iPhones, tablets, and laptops have given students easier access to listening to music through device applications. Researchers have generated studies that have examined how listening to music while retaining information can impact short-term memory, which plays a key role in learning ability. Previous and recent studies have examined how short-term memory when listening to music may be affected when attempting to memorize verbal and written information. However, few studies have tested short-term memory without music and under musical conditions combined with visual tasks. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay While some students are able to learn solely by reading words on a screen or sheet of paper, others need some sort of visual representation while they learn. Visual learning is comparatively important compared to verbal learning because of the different ways students can retain information while learning. Pictures, graphs, charts, and maps are all aids that students and teachers now use as an easier way to explain and understand class material. Visually representing material can help students learn to group and organize things together, creating better retention. Chunking is known to be an effective strategy for memory retrieval. A study by Norris, Kalm, and Hall (2019) examined chunking and reinstatement in verbal short-term memory. The study involved six experiments consisting of word lists consisting of 7 items and featuring single or double words on a card. Some pairs were unrelated while others were closely related, such as grass and seeds. They were then tasked with performing a serial recall. The first experiment was conducted exactly as previously described, while the second was a short articulatory suppression training session. Experiments four, five, and six were identical to one and two, the only difference being that the pairs were grouped into pairs of three. The study aimed to find out what happens when more items in a list form chunks. The results show that coding words in chunks could allow more words to be stored in memory by freeing up space and, ultimately, improve memory recall of chunks and single words. These results are important because chunking can be used as a strategic aid to memorization. Students are often looking for ways to make their study habits more productive. Therefore, the proven results of this study can benefithomework and test scores of many students learning to integrate chunking into their lives. According to a study by Calderwood et al., (2014), multitasking while studying has become one of the biggest distractions for many students. The participants, all of whom were college students, participated in a 3-hour solitary study and homework session. Multitasking was measured on the frequency and duration of distractions and multimedia multitasking. The results indicated that on average, students spent 73 minutes of the session listening to music while studying. They also reported that students who spent less time multitasking during a 3-hour period showed greater motivation for homework and greater self-efficacy for focusing on it. ci.duties. This study shows the extent to which students choose to incorporate multitasking while still getting their work done. Today's technological advancements have made it extremely easy for students to access music apps, social media apps, television, and other media that can distract them while studying. It has become an important part of student work productivity across the United States. Although multitasking made it difficult for students to study, another study by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1971) examined the importance of short-term memory on the ability to remember. information. Short-term memory governs the flow of selected information through a control process in the memory system. Control processes are used in various scenarios and only in special circumstances. The study uses the term “repetition” meaning the covert repetition of information. Repetition is used when an individual knows they will need to recall information later. This study shows its current relevance because it describes short-term memory as a selection of conscious control. When individuals are tested at school or work, this information will need to be relayed through repetition so that it can be recalled later. Additionally, a study conducted by Lemaire (2019) examined the effect of background music on episodic memory, while considering the wide variety of IQ levels that have rarely been considered in other research. In this study, three groups were matched according to gender, age, years of schooling and musical expertise. They memorized lists of three words while listening to background noise or stimulating or relaxing music. They found that compared to relaxing background music and noise, stimulating background music made the third list slightly easier to remember. Moving forward with these findings, it is possible that listening to stimulating background music could improve episodic memory. Additionally, a study conducted by Reaves et al. (2014) examined the effect of background music on visual associative memory. In the study, young and older adults were tasked with studying face-name pairs silently or while listening to music. Their memory was then tested while listening to the same or different music and then rated how distracting they found the music. Results indicated that all participants found music more distracting than silence during the task. However, memory was only impaired by musical conditions in older adults. This research suggests that young adults may have greater memory retention when listening to music and may also indicate why young adults choose and can concentrate while listening to music and studying than themost adults. Additionally, Nguyen and Grahn (2017) conducted a study that examined the effects of music-induced mood and arousal on different memory tasks. Music was tested among recall, memory, and associative memory tasks. The experiment tested different memory tasks with mood-induced music, including low and high arousal music. Two types of ambient-induced music were used: high-arousal and low-arousal 90s instrumental music. Various conditions were used, music present only at study, only at test, and both at study and test. Results indicated that participants remembered more words when they listened to low-arousal music, but only when the music was negative for recognition memory. For associative memory, neither high nor low arousal music appears to affect recognition. Comparing music to silence in all conditions, it was revealed that background music did not significantly improve verbal memory performance. Overall, background and arousal music affected recall and recognition memory, but memory was not improved by background music. Another study by Rowe (1974) examined the ordered recall of sounds and words in short-term memory. The study included two experiments that were compared among 7-element sequences of sounds and words. The first experiment involved a verbal response to the task. The second experiment involved a nonverbal response autask. In the experiments, first, the order of sounds was more difficult to remember than the words. In the second experiment, the results were similar to those of the first experiment: sound sequences were more difficult to remember than words. The results indicate that it is easier to recall words rather than sounds. Previous research has examined how music affects short-term memory using verbal and auditory memory tasks. However, little research has been conducted on short-term memory visualization tasks associated with music and no-music conditions. The purpose of this study was to examine whether short-term memory would be affected by listening to music or not. To test this, students were asked to perform a visual task after being exposed to music or no music condition and perform a recall test immediately afterward. After conducting previous research on the effects of music and memorization, conflicting results were produced as to whether or not music would improve memorization. This topic is not only uncertain, but it also has real importance since music and studies are so closely intertwined with today's culture. This study hypothesized that between the music group and the no music group, the no music group would have a higher score on the number of correct words recalled. Therefore, it is predicted that the presence of music will affect short-term memory. MethodParticipantsThis study included 60 participants (36 female, 24 male), all Fresno State students. Their ages ranged between 18 and 25, where (M=20.75). Participants were recruited face-to-face in different settings, such as on campus, at home, and in other public places. Prior to the study, students provided consent to participate in the study and knew that their information would be kept confidential. They also knew there was no compensation for their participation. Design and Procedure This study was conducted as a real experiment..