Abstract
Previous studies on effects of background music (BGM) in context-dependent memory suggested that participants’ arousal level was affected by tempo change of BGM, and consistency of arousal level between encoding and retrieval might enhance free recall. In this study we used a musical piece by Mozart as BGM and produced four versions of varied tonality (major or minor) and tempo (fast and slow). In the encoding phase, participants rated pleasantness of 25 words listening BGM of major-fast version twice. After the distraction phase they conducted free recall listening one of four versions of the BGM. Higher recall scores were obtained when the tonality of the BGM was the same (major) between encoding and retrieval, but change of tempo had no effect. Participants in the major versions reported higher pleasant mood than participants in minor versions. It is suggested that high pleasantness evoked by BGM might enhance memory retrieval.
