PROJECT PROPOSAL

ClASSICAL MUISC EFFECT THE GUNIEA PIGS MEMORY RETENTION AND

LEARNING ABILITY

BY

PITH LAOHAVRIOJANA

SUCHANUCH PUTAPRAPASRI

NAPASSORN PISITTIVITAYANON

LALIDA SURIYANONRIN

G. 11-2
 Classical music Effect Guinea pigs Learning ability and Memory retention.

Introduction

Everyone loves listening to music, felling relax, refreshing and happy. Some people listen

to music while studying and some found it as a distraction. There are some recent researches that

proved listening to music before studying or doing activity can bring advantageous to the listener

by improving attention, memory, ability to do mental math also reduce depression and anxiety.

Because so many students listen to music while studying, many groups of scientist were trying to

find out whether or not listening to music will give the student beneficial result. Talking about

studying and remembering things, there are two main types of memories which is short term and

long term. It takes time, processes and repetitions to through short term memory to a long lasting

one.

Recall that music help in focusing, then how about remembering? From an experiment on

classical music, had found that listening to music can help up-regulate the genes responsible for

dopamine and also enhance learning ability and memory (Helsingin, 2015). People feel happy

after listening to music, after a positive feelings their tasks results positively too. This

experiment was conducted to find out whether classical music can be a new method for teaching

and training. It couldnt be denied that learning is not easy, it needs practices and right amount of

information for the learners to receive the best, the most and remember the information as well

as possible. So it would be really helpful to find out a better way to learn or to help enhance the

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learning process. Since everybody loves listening to music it would be great if learning abilities

can be improve by listening to music. Classical music will be use in this experiment based on

Mozart effect. Rauscher played different classical musics for one group of the rats while keep the

other group in a room with no music. The result showed that the group played musics for was

better at learning and getting out of the maze. This shows music improves learning ability in rats.

If our experiment can prove or give useful result about music, it could be thrive as a new

teaching method even for mental disabilities people, increases people retention like for anyone

who had Alzheimer or there will be more ways to help animals learn. But theres not enough

information to support this idea yet and there are also some articles disagreeing about the help of

music on memory.Therefore, This experiment will be demonstrated about Will classical music

help trigger learning development of guinea pig and increases its retention?

Hypothesis

If the guinea pig listen the classical music while running the maze every time then

overtime, they will not remember the way to find the exit of the maze because of the music has a

negative consequence to guinea pigs memory and learning.

Literature Review

Since music has taken a big part of people life in nowadays, many people might have

thought that music will help in learning ability and memory retention especially classical music.

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There were many researches in the past have shown that classical music or Mozart effect will

increase memory retention and have good altered on memory retention. However, Recently, there

are many journal articles, researches and experiments published and talked about the negative

affect of music on ability of learning and memory. Regarding the experiment fromUniversity of

Wisconsin, Dept. of Physiology about the effect of music tempo on memory retention

, The result has shown that music caused the negative influences toward memory retention of

human.The group of participants with absence of music background tend to be able to recall

more words than the group with slow tempo and fast tempo. Nevertheless, the group with the fast

tempo music had the worst at recall words than then rest. However, the score differences among

three groups were minor meaning that there was no significant differences between with music

or without music. (Jurkovic, A., Anderson, C., Myklejord, D., Levin, C., & Lotz, A, 2013). In

general, the way to determine the smartness of the brain is the amount of neurons. The

mammalian brain is made up of countless neuron. And neuron help mammals brain to gather

and transmit electrochemical signals. Electrical signals are the communication between the

neurons which rely on chemical or electrical. More number of neurons means that the neural

communication can occur faster and have a better functional (Valeo, 2008). According to DNA

learning center website mentioned about number of neurons between human brain and rodent

brain. It stated that the rodent brain contained about eight million neurons whereas human brain

is about 10 -15 millions neurons (Brain size and intelligence- why a human is smarter than a

mouse, n.d.). This showing that human has a better communication between neuron than the

mouse and this help people can achieve the task and have a better learning development. As
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mentioned in this experiment, Music has partially negative impact which human were doing a

given task. And human brain has a better functional than rodent. This is proving that music can

lower ability of guinea pigs retention and learning development because in human, it is still

caused some negative impact but in rodent might be even worse because rodent neurons is lesser

than human neurons.

Another experiment is from Fordham University about Effects of Background Music on

Word Recall. The result point out that the participants with an absent music condition did have

the higher word recall rather than the one who had presence of classical music condition.

However, there are still not a big differences but presence of music does exhibited a little of

negative affect (Konantz, 2012). This experiment is quite precise to experiment from this

proposal because they used the classical music tested whether it affect the humans memory or

not. Human and rodents are very similar in term of genetic and behavior. The Rodents always be

used in an experiment especially when things have to involve with human. Regarding National

Human Genome Research Institute stated that mice and human share virtually the same sets of

gene. It is only less than 10 genes are not found in one another species. Moreover, 85 percent of

the protein-coding regions of the mouse is identical to the protein-coding regions of the human.

This is because mouse and human are shared a common ancestor about 80 million years ago and

this is the reason why the scientist uses the rodent to conduct in an experiment (Why Mouse

Matters, 2010). Seemingly, human and rodent are related so this is proving that the response

from the human might be similar to the rodent response. In this case, the music doesn't help

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participants retention or human retention at all so this might happen to guinea pig too because of

their common genome. The music might decrease learning ability and mention of guinea pig.

Evidently, these two experiments are tested the same condition which the effect from the

music toward memory retention and spatial task. However, the experiment from University of

Wisconsin was focusing on more the tempo of music rather than the music and absence of music

condition. On the other hand, the experiment from Fordham University was comparing between

how the classical music affect the memory compared to the group with music. But these two

experiments still get the same result. For the mistake that can be noticed in both of experiment is

both of the experiments focused only the participants from university only and the participants

age is around 20-25 years old. Therefore, the result from both experiment might not cover in

every aged. Moreover, the experiment cannot guarantee that this result can happen to every

people because it is not include all of people type. Both of experiments should be specified on

the group of people that investigated. They should state that Does music impact people in the age

group of 20-25. However, the good thing form both experiment showed the diagram and graph in

order to compare the experiments result. This is can be proved that the result is accurate and

reliable.

Materials

1. Two male guinea pigs

2. Crate papaer

3. Colors
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 4. Loudspeaker

5. Classical music: Canon in D major

6. Guinea pigs Food

7. Scissor

8. Tape

9. Cage

Methodology

Maze Design

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 The maze design is based on other people experimental maze design and maze toy for

hamster. Looking on variety of maze design and decide to make a maze that the pathway is not

too small for the guinea pig, to reduce it stress. Since the dead end is an important factor in our

experiment, it must be designed to blend with the maze, so it can trick the guinea pig to run into

a dead end if it cant remember the trail yet.

Literature Review on Methodology

Rodents bought from vendor should be not be disturb and let them be in their house for at

least 1 weeks. This help the guinea pig overcome the stress from the shipping process. In this 1

week habituation, the guinea pig should met with other guinea pigs to reduce anxiety or

depression ( recommended 4-5 per cages). They also recommended a polycarbonate cages that

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should be in a room with 20-22 degree celsius controlled. Their cage is also equipped with 12/12

h reversed light cycle with access to food( They use Purina Rat Chow ) and water. (Alicia A.

Walf, & Cheryl A. Frye, 2013)

Ethic/Humane statement

After performing a difficult task, stress might be produced. But theres a way to reduce

stress, by using counter conditioning. Counter conditioning is used to determine the animals fear

and treat them to overcome their anxiety. This method of helping the animal to overcome stress

or discomfort can be done easily. The owner will be giving foods, snacks, or things that the

animal have a positive feelings toward every time the animal is feeling scare, fearful or stress.

Also, the owner will have to make sure that animal is not feeling stress but feel safe. At the same

time, feeding should not make the animal feels threatened or forced. It should happen gradually

and naturally in order to make the animal experience comfort. Moreover, the owner will find it

easier to take care of the animal since they are pleasure and enjoy themselves.

Experiment Design Procedure

First, the assign materials are to be bought separately. Next, the size of guinea pig is

measured to know how big the maze going to be. Then cut the cardboard to make the maze.

Meanwhile, the guinea pig owner will make the guinea pig familiar by feeding and playing with

them. In the same time, the guinea pig will be taught run the maze. After the maze is finished,

decoration. The first guinea pig will enter the maze, without music. As it walk through the maze,

the data on how many dead ends it encounter and the time it take to get out of the maze will be

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recorded. Repeat the steps until it completely remember the route to the exit. Then second guinea

pig will be test, this time with music. Then record the number of dead ends it encounter and the

time it used to get out of the maze.The steps will be repeat as many times as the first one. If the

results are the same, guinea pig may be brought together and see which get out faster.

Data collection

To determine data collection, first counts how many dead ends the guinea encounter. AT

the same time, time the guinea pig starting from the maze entrance to the exit. Moreover, record

the guinea pig development by one: how fast it take to realize the door at the middle of the maze

and two: how fast it is to reach the exit. See whether there is improvement or not. this can

recorded on the data table (fig1.1). Next, compare the data between the two guinea pigs by

plotting graph. The experiment has to conduct in five trials meaning that the result should be an

average value. Therefore, the result of each guinea pigs condition will be plotted in graph after

that the result will be calculated from the mean value from plotting the graph. Finally, conclude

the data gained from the experiment. If the supporting data is not enough, put the guinea pig in

the same maze for a race to the exit.

Guinea pig Time (seconds)

Group
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trail 3 Trial 4 Trial 5

With classical
music

With absence
of music

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 Fig 1.1

Limitation

The limitation to our experiment is that guinea pig arent raise bu human from birth, so

the guinea pig wont give trust. When they are suspecting, it cause them to stress out. When

buying them and take them to house, relocate them, and to school also cause them to stress. The

habituation process for them to get used to their new place may vary in different guinea pig. This

process was decided to last for about 1 week, but they might still be frighten of their new

environment. This is when counterconditioning come in handy. However, when this didnt

perform by the scientists, it may cause the guinea pig to scare more. Importantly, guinea pig

body signal can be misinterpreted and cause error in collecting data or in treating them.

Timeline of an experiment

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Conclusion

This experiment will help with the understanding of music effects on guinea pigs. Two

male guinea pigs will be used to test this, which the determining factor we are looking for is time

for it to get out, the number of dead ends it encounter in the maze and how many round it used to

complete the maze. Then we will compare the data between the guinea pigs that learn will music

environment and another is no music and see which is better.

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is-smarter-than-a-mouse/

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jass.neuro.wisc.edu/2013/01/602%2012%20The%20Effect%20of%
20Music%20Tempo%20On%20Mem ory%20Retention1.pdf

How To Build a Hamster Maze. (2014, April 10). Retrieved May 08, 2017, from https://
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Importance of Mouse Genome. (n.d.). Retrieved May 08, 2017, from https://www.genome.gov/
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20Music%20Tempo%20On%20Mem ory%20Retention1.pdf

Klemm, W. (2013, December 01). Does Music Help Memory? Retrieved May 08, 2017, from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201312/does-music-help-
memory

Researchers Say Mozart Has Amazing Effect On Rats. (1998, August 11). Retrieved May 08,
2017, from http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-08-11/news/9808110252_1_mozart-
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Walf, A. A., & Frye, C. A. (2013, April 12). The use of the elevated plus maze as an assay of
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