Poster #26 - Music and Neurocognitive Differences Modulating Performance on an Organic Chemistry Mental Rotation Task

• In Event: 64.090 - MTCC Poster Session 15
  In Poster Session: 64.090-4 - Brain, Neuroscience, and Education: Emotion, Music, Learning Styles, and Special Education

Abstract

Scholars have endeavored to utilize music as an intervention to address a multitude of factors, from executive functioning to anxiety to working memory capacity. This study shows that music might not be the quick solution to alleviating cognitive differences or improving cognitive performance as some had hoped. The music condition elicited shorter response times compared to the control condition for high but not low performers. NIH Toolbox cognitive measures predicted performance for the music group, but not for the control group. EEG alpha and theta power changes predicted task accuracy for the control group, but not treatment, suggesting that music served to affect brain wave patterns and subsequently performance, by disrupting the typical oscillatory patterns seen in the control condition.

Authors

• Andrea Burgess, University of Florida

• Pasha Antonenko, University of Florida

• Andreas Keil, University of Florida

• Nathaniel Willey, University of Florida