Abstract
The present study investigated whether the familiarity of background-musical selections influences the musical cue strength. The experiment used a one-way between-participants design employing four levels of familiarity of background-musical selections. Before experimentation, 12 undergraduates, who did not participated in the experiment, rated the familiarity of 17 pieces of music on a 7-point scale ranging from quite unfamiliar (1) to quite familiar (7). 60 undergraduates were randomly assigned into the 4 between-participants conditions. The undergraduates individually received 16 words one-by one at a rate of 4 s per word, and were required orally to report free associated word(s). After a 2.5-min filled retention interval, the under graduates received an oral free-recall test. During both the word presentation and the free-recall test, the same piece of music was presented. As a result, free recall significantly decreased as a function of the familiarity. The implications of the results were discussed.
