Andante, Allegro o Silenzio: An Examination of Background Music Tempo on Facial Emotions, Electrodermal Responses, and Reading Task Performance

Current literature has established that learner’s emotions are an integral part of the learning experience (Pekrun Perry, 2014) and have significant effects on learning processes that optimize performance (Cunningham, Dunfield, Stillman, 2013), and attentional responses (Kärner Kögler, 2016). This present study examines the psycho-emotional and psychophysiological effects that variations in the tempo of background music have on learners who are completing reading comprehension tasks. To accomplish this, the present study examines how learning performance is modulated through the expressed emotions and bodily responses of participants and how our understanding of the relationship between the emotional experience and cognitive functions in learning tasks. A total of seventy-four (N= 74) participants studied in this project indicated that the tempo condition that participants were exposed to while competing their reading comprehension task did have a significant effect of predicting their performance outcome, emotional expressions, and psychophysiological responses. Results indicated that participants were more likely to have lower performance scores accompanied with the likelihood of greater expressions of fear, joy and contempt, along with greater skin conductance responses when listening to fast tempo music (150bpm). These results can suggest that a combined regulatory mechanism may be at play that helps indicate the combined effect that music may have on cognitive performance, attention allocation, and emotion regulation.

Department dc:contributor.department

Curriculum, Teaching and Learning

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Moreno, Matthew

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Woodruff, Earl

• Educational psychology
• Emotion
• Emotion regulation
• Music cognition

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1807/101108

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/101108