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Does Pleasurable Music Indirectly Better Learning?: A Multimodal Approach, Elizabeth Anna Roeglin

Undergraduate Honors Papers

Recent research has shown that musical pleasure is due to the combination of uncertainty and surprise a musical piece elicits. Additionally, research has demonstrated that music influences arousal and mood, both of which affect learning. However, current research has not adequately tested whether pleasurable music indirectly improves learning by influencing mood/arousal. This study attempts to do so. Twenty-seven participants completed a survey that included the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire. Eighteen participants, whose scores demonstrated that they feel emotion-evoking and/or mood-regulatory pleasure from listening to music, came in for further testing. These participants experienced a music condition, in which they listened …