Studies have demonstrated higher performance on a number of cognitive tasks following exposure to music ( Nantais and Schellenberg, 1999 Särkämö et al., 2008 Sutton and Lowis, 2008 Smith et al., 2010 Schellenberg and Weiss, 2013). A beneficial effect of music on cognitive performance has also been reported. The positive effect of music on emotion and stress regulation is well documented ( Sloboda et al., 2001 Krout, 2007 DeNora, 2011 Chanda and Levitin, 2013 Hallam and MacDonald, 2013 Saarikallio et al., 2013 Habibi and Damasio, 2014). Listening to music is a common activity, whether simply for the pleasure it promotes or for its psychological and cognitive benefits ( Huron, 2007). Although different aspects of music are considered universal, there may be cultural differences that limit the generalization of certain effects of music on cognition or that modulate the characteristics that favor its beneficial impact. The study highlights the importance of considering the sociocultural context in research examining the impact of music on cognition. Performance on the n-back task generally improved from pre to post, in all conditions, but this improvement was less important in participants who listened to familiar Rwandan music compared to those who listened to unfamiliar Western music or to a short story.
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Unlike in previous studies with Western samples, our results with this Rwandan sample did not show any positive effect of familiar, pleasant and stimulating music on working memory.
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Working memory was measured using a behavioral task, the n-back paradigm, before and after listening to music (or the short story in the control condition). One hundred and nineteen participants were randomly assigned to a control group (short story) or one of four different musical conditions varying on two dimensions: arousal (relaxing, stimulating) and cultural origin (Western, Rwandan). The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of music on working memory in a non-Western sociocultural context: Rwanda. The benefits of music on cognition have been widely studied in Western populations, but not in other cultures. Previous research shows that listening to pleasant, stimulating and familiar music is likely to improve working memory performance. 7École de Psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, Québec, QC, Canada.
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4International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, QC, Canada.3Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France.2DysCo Laboratory, Département de Psychologie, Université Paris 8, Saint-Denis, France.1Groupe de Recherche CogNAC, Département de Psychologie, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Québec, QC, Canada.Sara-Valérie Giroux 1*, Serge Caparos 2,3, Nathalie Gosselin 1,4,5, Eugène Rutembesa 6 and Isabelle Blanchette 1,7*