The Effects of Music on Lexical Decision Tasks
Elizabeth Nichols, Sarah Northrop, Emily Shier
Alma College
A Lexical Decision Task is a form of psycholinguistics
and experiments are widely used to test a
participants accuracy in deciding whether the
presented stimulus is a real word or not (Harley,
2001). These tasks are conducted using a large
number of participants to decipher if the quickly
shown stimulus is recognized as a real word or not.
The stimuli shown are usually a random selection of
high to low frequency words, pseudo-words (non-words
where morphemes are specifically chosen to represent
the natural form of real words), and random letter
strings.
This experiment is designed to use ideas from past
research on the lexical decision task and examine
words and non-words. Participants listen to music with of without lyrics in order to determine word
recognition differences between real and non-words in the Lexical Decision Task. The non-words in the experiment
consist of the beginning and ending letters in a
similar order while the middle letters are scrambled
at random.
Method
Participants:
the 25 participants were male and female Alma College students between
the ages of 18-22. Each participant volunteered for this experiment. They were read
instructions before beginning the experiment. They
were not given any compensation for their
participation in our study. Participants were separated randomly into two different groups, 14 in the Lyrics Group, 11 in the Non-Lyrics Group.
Materials:
the program used was the Eyelines program on a
McIntosh PC. Each of the fifteen words and fifteen non-word
files appeared on the screen for 0.15 seconds. We used
high-frequency words such as, tomorrow, but spelled
as t-o-m-m-o-r-o-w. (See Table 1)
Table 1
| Non Words |
Words |
| Tommorow |
Throughout |
| Thuohgt |
Remember |
| Hydorgen |
Forever |
| Buogh |
Embarrassed |
| Feburary |
Success |
| Eihgt |
Orange |
| Lasgnaa |
Collegiate |
| Exctimenet |
Thorough |
| Susepct |
Wednesday |
| Aspraguas |
Graduation |
| Conesrvative |
Hollow |
| Harssaemnt |
Yesterday |
| Recieve |
Weird |
| Refirgreator |
Microwave |
| Bargian |
Beginning |
The songs that were played for participants were CDs
with either rap/ reggae music containing lyrics or
rap/reggae music without lyrics. The Non-Lyrics song was Groove Holmes by the Beastie Boys, and the Lyrics song was Hard Out Here For A Pimp from the Hustle & Flow Soundtrack.
Procedure:
participants then were asked to
look at the screen and watch the word or non-word that
appeared for 0.15 seconds. Once the word flashed the participants
pressed either a YES key (A) or NO key (L) after
they decided if what flashed was a word or non-word.
Participants then were asked to write the word or
non-word on the sheet of paper in front of them. The
participants were asked to do this thirty times, once for each stimulus.
Results
As shown in Figure 1 the Lyrics group had a
mean response of 4.5 of the 15 non-words incorrectly
perceived to be real words. The mean for real words
correctly perceived to be real words was 9.2 for the
Lyrics group.
The Non-Lyrics group had a higher mean for each
detection. A mean of 6.9 is shown for incorrectly perceiving non-words as real words. And
12.1 was the mean for the Non-Lyrics groups correct
decisions of real words judged as real words. This information explains that a
lexical decision task performed while listening to
music without lyrics has little effect on the
participants ability to identify the stimuli
presented in the experiment. There is no interaction between the two groups.
Figure 1. Mean Correct Responses for Word Recognition
This graph represents the average number of YES responses for recognizing both Real and Non words dependent on Lyrics or Non-Lyrics groups. The Y axis shows the number of YES responses.
Discussion
These means provide some evidence for the null
hypothesis to be true, that music with lyrics would
allow participants to score better on the lexical
decision task since the means are for the number of
times participants answered incorrectly.
Overall we have deciphered that the Lexical Decision Task performed with music makes little noticeable effects to the participants ability to detect non-words verses real words.
More research may be needed in this area. Future
researchers who study this effect may want to consider
the music they use, and other possible ways to obtain
data that would be more efficient.
Reference
Harley, Trevor (2001). The Psychology of Language. From Data To Theory , Hove: Psychology Press. ISBN 0-86377-866-6.
Beastie Boys. Groove Holmes, Check Your Head. Capitol/EMI Records (1992).
Jordan Husten, Cedrick Coleman, Paul Bauregard. Hard Out Here For A Pimp. Hustle & Flow Soundtrack. Atlantic REcords (2005).
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