Do emotions evoked by music modulate visuospatial working memory capacity? A physiological study

• Published in: Psychology of music Vol. 51; no. 4; pp. 1192 - 1208
• Main Authors: Ribeiro, Fabiana Silva, Santos, Flávia H., Albuquerque, Pedro B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.07.2023
• Subjects: visuospatial capacity; music; emotions; working memory; emotional states
• ISSN: 0305-7356; 1741-3087
• DOI: 10.1177/03057356221135352

Previous studies have shown that emotions evoked through music can have transient effects on cognitive performance. Considering the importance of working memory (WM) in the processing of new information, in this study, we investigated the impact of positive and negative emotions evoked through music on visuospatial WM performance using a within-subjects design. Moreover, we concomitantly recorded the participants’ physiological responses during listening to musical stimuli. Seventy-eight participants were allocated to counterbalanced positive, negative, and neutral emotional inductions through music (EIM) followed by an adaptive visuospatial WM task. Results revealed that participants’ visuospatial WM performance was increased after positive EIM compared with negative and neutral EIMs transiently. We also observed increased skin conductance levels during positive EIM compared with baseline and a lower heart rate throughout positive EIM than the other conditions. Overall, these findings suggest that music evoking positive emotions can boost visuospatial WM performance. This is the first study to explore cognitive performance after EIM and physiological responses to musical stimuli simultaneously, which may have important practical implications since we engage in cognitively demanding activities after listening to music that could evoke happy or sad emotions.