VirSchool - The Effect of Music on Memory for facts learned in a Virtual Environment

This book discusses how music played in the background of a computer-animated history lesson affected participants' memory for facts. A virtual environment was created that delivered the history of Australia's first lighthouse. The history lesson was presented to participants with different musical stimuli in the background and on two different display systems. Results showed that those participants who used a less immersive 3-monitor display system remembered a statistically significant higher number of facts from the historical information than those participants who used a highly immersive 3-projector 'Reality Center' display system. In addition, participants using the less immersive 3-monitor display system remembered significantly more information if no background music was played in the second half of the history lesson as compared to their peers who listened to music in the second half. Conversely, if background music was played during the second half of the history lesson in the more immersive Reality Center, participants had a higher recall of facts as compared to participants who were not exposed to music in the second half of the history lesson.