Is Listening to Music While Studying Beneficial? - WAC

     If you are reading this, you most likely listen to music while you study. If so, might I ask you, if you will, why you do so? Is it to drown out noise and focus only on the music that you choose, or is it the fact that it can incite certain moods that motivate you to work further?  Today, listening to music while doing work in general is common among students today. But there has been a long lasting debate on whether it is actually beneficial or not.  Students who listen to music themselves enjoy doing so due to the fact that it can drown out the far worse and distracting background noises of their classroom environment while studies shown by the University of Wales prove that listening to music can impair short term memory. So is listening to music while studying harmful? The short answer is, it depends. Instrumental music can improve mood, awareness and memory while lyrical music can be quite the distraction and impair short term memory.

     A study that shows that instrumental music can be beneficial is one conducted by the University of Dayton. According to the study abstract, researchers aimed to "assess the effects of fast-tempo music on cognitive performance." To do so, they observed 56 male and female students and studied their performance on linguistics and spacial processing tasks. With that, the students were accompanied with Mozart music in the background as they worked. According to the study abstract, "Background music increased the speed of spatial processing and the accuracy of linguistic processing. The findings suggest that background music can have predictable effects on cognitive performance." This means that instrumental music displays possible benefits to those who listen to it while they study. However, despite instrumental music in the background proving to be useful when studying, the same cannot be said for lyrical music, or music with vocals.

     Music with vocals, or any acoustical variation have been proven to be a major distraction when studying. The University of Wales conducted a research that showed that listening to vocal music impairs short term memory. To prove this, they gathered participants and gave them a set of letters to memorize. They then tested them under a few noise conditions: quiet, music that they enjoyed, music that they disliked, a voice repeating the number three, and a voice saying random single digit numbers. The study found that the participants' mood and impression towards the music that they listened to was an irrelevant factor towards their performance. If there was sound that had vocals, say the music or the voice saying random single digit numbers, the participants would fail to memorize the order of the letters they were given. Lead researcher Nick Perham concluded in the study's press release that "The poorer performance of music and changing-state sounds are due to the acoustical variation within those environments within those environment." This proves that listening to any music with vocal or acoustic variation can actually be a distraction rather than a benefit.

     An argument brought up by the article Why You Shouldn't Listen to Music While Studying by Sara Briggs uses the study conducted by the University of Wales to further show why listening to music while studying is harmful. The article cites a study conducted by Stanford University which observed people listening to 18th century music. From the study, researchers were able to conclude that "music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions, and updating the event in memory." While that is true, the use of the fact to support the article's core argument is invalid. Because instrumental music focuses the brain onto the music, it can drown out a far worse distraction- that being the classroom environment. Classrooms are normally noisy and talkative, and as proven by the University of Wales, can be a distraction and impair short term memory. What instrumental music can do is make the brain's focus on something else rather than the classroom noise. This is perhaps associated to the reason why students listen to music while studying in the first place. In the article Music in the Classroom: Distraction or Study Tool? by Shelby Archuleta, one student stated that, "Music definitely has an effect on the way you think and act... But I think it does help me concentrate because then I can drown out the other [students]" This proves that instrumental music can be beneficial in removing vocal noises.

    So does listening to music enhance cognitive performance? In summary, it depends on the type of music that you listen to. In search to find the answer to this question, the University of Dayton found that listening to instrumental music from the 18th century improves both the speed and accuracy of linguistics and spacial processing, which may imply a potential benefit for music. On the other hand, the University of Wales concluded that listening to music could actually be quite harmful, but only tested for vocal and acoustic variation, which may imply that there may be different effects in regards to listening to instrumentals and listening to vocals. Listening to music while studying is a common thing to do among students. Many say that it's fun to do so, while others say that it can mute the distraction of the environment that they work in. Either way, listening to instrumental music can drown out such noise and make you focus on the work that must be accomplished. But in the end, it depends on whether you are distracted easily or not.  

Roller Coaster Physics - Project Blog

Summary:

     Physics is the science of matter and motion and how it interacts with other bodies of matter. There are many factors that dictate how an object would normally behave. Some of the basics include: Velocity, Acceleration, Force, Energy and Newton's three laws of motion. Velocity is a vector quantity that measures the speed that an object moving at relative to a reference point given the direction. For example, 50 m/s North is a velocity since it gives both speed and direction. Acceleration is how much velocity is gained relative to time. An example of acceleration is 5 m/s^2, which means that the object is moving 5 m/s faster every second. Energy is required for an object to be in motion or behave at all. There are two forms of energy; potential and kinetic energy. Potential energy is the energy that an object stores while kinetic energy is the energy of an object whilst in motion. Force is any action that will change the motion of an object. Finally Newton's three laws dictate motion which are: The law of inertia, Force = Mass x Acceleration and Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. 

Backward-Looking:

     What process did you go through to produce this piece? The first step in making a roller coaster was prototyping via sketches. All of the members of our team drew their own sketch and ideas and we came to a consensus of which roller coaster looked the best. The second step was to gather all the materials such as insulation tubing, dowels and tape and buying them with the coins that we got based on the points that we received on physics sheets. The third step was seeing if the prototype actually worked. My team and I held the roller coaster identical to the prototype (with slight changes) and tested if the marble completed the track. Once it did, we proceeded onto the next step. The fourth step was construction. Gluing down the dowels and taping the insulation tubing together. The final step was to label the physics along the track (acceleration, velocity, force, energy, Newton's 3 laws, etc.) and reflect upon how the roller coaster worked. 

Inward-Looking:

     How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work? I feel that was both a really engaging project and an insightful one. This unit in general helped me understand how each concept in physics come together to make things move and behave. The main part that I liked was the construction stage, where we were building the roller coaster. During that stage, we prototyped and saw what worked and didn't, and came up with new ideas along the way. I wouldn't say that there was anything that I disliked about the project. If anything, it would be my team and I not taking it seriously the first day of the project, though we were coordinated and worked together in the following days of the project.

Outwards Looking: 

      Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently? In what ways was your work or process similar? Upon observing other people, I saw that all teams' rollercoasters had different layouts, except for a selected few components such as the decoration (using cups/tapes as tunnels and construction paper as decoration. A distinguishable factor in our roller coaster was the labeling. We labeled the areas of physics with construction paper triangles in blue or yellow, attached them to toothpicks/tape and placed them in where the marble would demonstrate that area of physics. A similarity between all teams is that they used dowels, hot glue and tape to bind the insulation tubing together, although I did see some teams using cardboard. 

Forward Looking:

     What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again? Honestly, the only thing that I would have changed were the decorations. Most of the color on our roller coaster came from the labels that were yellow and blue. Our decorations lacked color and were mainly tunnels made of either tape or cups. I would have spent less time constructing and spending a bit more time adding more decorations and color. Overall however, I think our roller coaster turned out great with the track and the physics labels. 

Roller Coaster Physics (2/5 - 2/9)

https://goo.gl/UhrJeb

Summary:

     Roller coasters are a form of amusement that send people in a cart through several twists, turns and inversions which are built with light rails. Roller coasters utilize several properties of physics in order to work. Motion is what makes the cart move. Kinetic energy determines the energy while the cart is in motion and potential energy determines the energy that the object stores. Acceleration makes the cart gain velocity so it can gain enough speed to go over loops. Force determines what stops the cart (gravity, friction, air resistance, etc.) or makes it accelerate. Finally, Newton's three laws help determine the forces that would stop the cart from being in inertia, the force of the cart, and where and how the cart's equal and opposite reaction would be exerted.

SP2 - Developing and Using Models:

     This week I developed and tested a model to see how the roller coaster that we made a prototype of with a drawing would function. The materials that we made the roller coaster with was a 4x6 wooden board, 2 dowels, 10 ft (3.05 m), masking tape, hot glue and a marble as the cart. Our roller coaster consisted of a 4 ft. drop which would transition into a loop. That loop would then transition into a corkscrew which was a 360° turn sideways and would then go in a straight line for 3 ft. before stopping. By creating this roller coaster, we created a model of a roller coaster which helped us measure vector and scalar quantities in a realistic point of view (modeling a roller coaster). After successfully testing out the roller coaster, we were able to find it's average velocity, acceleration, kinetic energy and potential energy.    

Newton's Three Laws of Motion (1/30 - 2/2)

https://goo.gl/yBtm5D

Summary:

     Newton's three laws of motion dictate how matter interacts with other matter. The first law of motion is the law of inertia. It states that any object in motion or at rest will stay the way they are unless a force acts upon it. For example, a pencil at rest will remain at rest unless a force acts upon it, such as a hand pulling it up. The second law of motion states that acceleration is proportional to the net force of an object. In other words, force is the equivalent to mass times acceleration (f = m x a). If an object has more mass, the more force is needed for more acceleration. Throwing a paper wad and having it accelerate is rather easy since it has very little mass. Throwing a bowling ball, however, is much more difficult as it requires more force for it to accelerate at the same magnitude as the paper wad. Finally, the third law of motion states that every action has equal and opposite reaction. For example, if you throw a ball at a wall, the ball will make contact will the wall with a forward force. In return, the wall will create an opposite yet equal force that will make the ball bounce back.

SP3 - Planning and Carrying Out Investigations: 

     This week, rather than trying to find out how Newton's three laws of motion works, I was, along with another partner trying to prove that it works. The first part of the lab was proving that the third law of motion worked. To do this, I sat on a swivel chair and jumped off of it, making the swivel chair and I go in opposite directions. My partner then recorded the data of how far the chair and I were from our original positions. The more force applied to the jump, the farther the chair and I traveled. We concluded that the third law of motion was correct. The second part was proving that the law of inertia was correct. To do this, we placed an index card on a cup and a penny on the index card. My partner and I flicked the index card and observed as the penny stood still and fell into the cup. The penny followed the law of inertia, as it stood still until gravity was applied onto it from the absence of the index card. The final part of the lab was proving the second law of motion. My partner and I set up a race track with one elevated side and placed a large marble at the bottom. At the top we dropped a small marble at the bottom and it pushed the large marble to the end of the track (which was 120 cm) in 4 seconds. We reversed the positions of the marbles and saw that the larger marble pushed the smaller marble to the end of the track in only half the time. From that, we concluded that the acceleration of the small marble was greater than the large one since the marbles pushing each one differed in force.