Easy as ABC, 123

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I think this is something that we all suffer from. You can spend hours studying for a test and staring at a textbook, and for some reason, you just can’t retain the information. It seems impossible to remember the formula right in front of you or the facts that you have been learning all semester. However, when one of your favorite songs comes on, even one you haven’t heard in years, you can remember the whole thing. You never hear Sweet Caroline on the radio often, but at a football game, you can scream all the lyrics. You can rap all of Anaconda  without missing a beat. But why can all of the words to these songs come back to us so easily, and the information we really need can’t?

According to this article, music has been used as a tool for remembering important things since the beginning of time. Songs were created to help remember how to prepare food, find water sources, etc. The ancient Jews sang the Torah to remember it before it was written. The article also points out that we still use these methods today. How did we learn the alphabet, or the days of the week and months of the year? Music is very strongly connected to the parts of our brain that help us remember, and this would explain why it is so easy for a song to become stuck in your head without much effort. After thousands of years of evolution, our brains have become programmed to interpret music as a way of remembering what we need to know. Of course, we don’t really need to know every line to so many songs, but it at least explains why it is such an easy thing to do. But why is it still so hard to remember the facts that will be on our exams?

While the answer to this is not very clear, this article points to a solution that may be able to help. Maybe turning the facts or formulas you need to remember into songs can help more than staring at pages for hours and trying to etch them into your brain. Psychologist Daniel Levitin says, ” ‘The structures that respond to music in the brain evolved earlier than the structures that respond to language’ “. So, right now we could be working towards making language easier to remember. For right now, though, this article only answered half the question, why it is so easy to remember music. This can still be helpful, however. Putting the information you need to know to your favorite song or a simple tune can be a very beneficial tool when you are cramming for that exam the next day. Rather than just repeating the words or numbers to yourself, try matching it with a song, and see if it makes the difference!

5 thoughts on “Easy as ABC, 123

  1. Patrick Emil Jackson

    This is an interesting topic that I’m sure many people can relate too. I can’t count how many times I have gotten a song stuck in my head while completing tasks. However, I find that it is often just one verse of the song that repeats. As Levitan makes an interesting hypothesis in the article you analyzed, “What we think is going on is that the neural circuits get stuck in a repetition loop an they play this thing over and over again.” Given how easily song verses get stuck in our heads, it is rational to think that music must be linked to an evolutionary adaption that helped our ancestors. The finding that structures in the brain that respond to music evolved earlier than the structures that respond to language, helps to explain this phenomenon. Another psychologist, Joseph Cardillo has done extensive research on the science of optimizing studying with the help of music. In this article, he illustrates some useful steps to get the most out of your studying while using some tunes as an aid.

  2. Alyssa Marie Gregory

    Great post! You made me put my thinking cap on. I personally do make up weird songs and other things to help me remember certain material while I’m studying. But I must agree with you when you say it is easier to remember lyrics to a song over a simple formula! You then brought up the question why that is. As scientist we must always present a reason behind our findings whether it is right or wrong we must take these risks in trying to find answers. So to me the reason behind that is because we enjoy these songs. It’s what we like and we appeal to it. On the other hand that same person who knows all the lyrics to that new Justin Bieber song might not remember that formula strictly off the fact that they hate math but love Justin Bieber. We tend to put more effort and dedication into the things that we love. A person who loves italian but hates english might studying more and harder for that exam over an exam for english and end up doing better on the italian exam. I believe it is all where your heart truly is or where you just seem to have a strong point . Here is a link with helpful tips that will try and get a resolution to those who have trouble studying http://www.csc.edu/learningcenter/study/studymethods.csc

  3. gel5088

    I think about this question all the time! Why is it that I know all of the words to songs on the radio yet I can’t remember a single thing that I read? How exactly is music connected to the part of our brains that help us remember things? From your article I assumed that this question is still left unanswered. Scientists would be able to perform an experiment to find an answer to this question. By monitoring the brain activity and having two groups, a control group and an experimental group we could figure out which part of the brain is affected by the music. I find this question very interesting and would like to do more research on it! I definitely find myself making up little songs in my head whenever I’m trying to study for a test.

  4. Olivia Yvette Noble

    Nice post! I actually do this all the time when it comes to tests and all. Studying for a new subject can be one of the most challenging things ever. Putting the information into a song can be very hard though, its like doing more homework sometimes! To me, music and learning has always been a good couple, because we all love music, and find an interest in it, which makes it fun, even though studying is a pain we can always try to find a way to make it little bit more fun.

  5. Briana Sara Blackwell

    I always found this topic pretty interesting because study habits in relation to music always vary. For example, when my 2 friends and I do homework together, they do better with music play. I, however, can’t concentrate at all with music. But in the same respect, they memorize lyrics very easily. I struggle with remembering song lyrics, so maybe studying with music correlates with how easily you actually retain music. I found a link http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2012/10/08/does-music-help-you-study/ that basically confirms that it’s hard to conclude how performance and music correlate because everyone learns differently. But it suggests that instrumentals rather than vocals might be more effective, which I could see being true.

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