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Encoding Specificity Effect in Musical Memory

January 2010

Conference: RAIME Research Alliance of Institutes for Music Education: Proceedings of the Tenth International Symposium

Authors:

Jennifer Mishra

The purpose of this study was to investigate the fundamental basis of musical memory, specifically the principal mode of musical storage using assumptions underlying the encoding specificity principal. An encoding/retrieval paradigm was used to determine whether recognition for musical stimuli would be affected by a change in presentation mode. Sixty randomly selected music majors were presented ten melodic fragments either aurally or visually (notation) and asked to rate the tonality on a four-point likert scale. For half of the participants, the recognition test stimuli were in the alternate presentation mode. There were no significant main effect mean differences (p < .05) by presentation mode, but there was a significant interaction effect. When the recognition test was presented in the same mode as the learning task, more of the melodic fragments were recognized. When presentation mode changed, recognition decreased. No evidence of auditory superiority effects emerged. The results of this study effectively demonstrate a connection between encoding and retrieval. To determine whether a modality preference occurred when encoding music for performance, an incidental musical recall task was given to 13 musicians. When memory failed, cues (either visual or aural) were provided to determine whether additional musical material was remembered. Visual cues were successful on 100% of presentations but aural cues were successful only 56% of the time indicating a preference for encoding music visually.

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