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As a student or professional, you've probably had moments where you're deep in focus: writing, coding, or cramming with music playing in your ears. But have you ever wondered: Is this music actually helping me concentrate, or making it harder?
That's exactly the question we set out to explore. Using data from A Multimodal Dataset for Investigating Working Memory in Presence of Music, we dive into how different types of music, calming versus vexing, affect memory accuracy, reaction time, and physiological stress responses during cognitive tasks.
In the original study, participants completed memory tests (1-back and 3-back) while researchers recorded behavioral performance alongside biometric signals like heart rate and electrodermal activity.
We built this tool to make those insights both personal and practical. First, take a short quiz to simulate the memory task. You'll see how your own performance changes under different musical conditions. Then dive into interactive visualizations that compare your results to broader trends in the dataset.
Whether you're studying for finals, writing an essay, or just curious about how music affects your brain, Music for Memory helps you answer the question we all care about: What kind of music helps me work best?
Before exploring the data you may have a few questions about the terminology used or the premise of the study, we hope to answer those here.
Calming music is characterized by slow tempos, gentle melodies and harmonies, and smooth dynamics that lower arousal. Vexing music, by contrast, uses faster tempos, louder volumes, dissonance or unpredictable rhythms to heighten tension, challenge the listener, or increase cognitive and emotional arousal.
An n-back memory task is a continuous working-memory test where you view a sequence of items, in our case letters, and must signal whenever the current item matches the one presented n steps earlier, with higher n increasing the task's difficulty.
Now you're all ready to explore Music for Memory