The Impact of Music on Verbal Memory: Evidence from Jordanian University Students

Purpose. Following the hypothesis of shared cognitive mechanisms between language and music, the present study investigates the interconnection between musical orientation and language processing operations in Broca’s area, namely verbal retrieval. The researchers replicated Taylor & Dewhurst’s (2017) study by applying a perceptual task of four types of words in Arabic to Jordanian university students spanning a wide range of musical orientations. Methods. The participants are musicians with different levels of musical training and non-musicians who vary in their musical interests. A T-test was applied to the results of musicians and non-musicians. Furthermore, a Kruskal-Wallis test was carried out to reveal significant differences within groups. Moreover, paired comparisons were conducted to find out significant differences between the four word types regardless of the participants’ musical background. Results. First, verbal memory was enhanced by musical training where musicians, despite their level of musical training, scored significantly better than non-musicians in the verbal recall test. Second, the level of musical training contributes to improving the ability to recall different types of words where advanced musicians scored higher than intermediates and beginners. Third, non-musicians who spend more time than others listening to music daily scored better in the given perceptual task than those who spend less time listening to music or do not listen to music at all. Finally, visual words appeared to be the easiest to recall since they are high in imagery. In contrast, abstract words are the hardest to recall given that they only have non-sensory features, unlike concrete words, such as visual, auditory and tactile words. Conclusions. This study supports the hypothesis of music impact on the retrieval process of words. Higher exposure to musical training or music in general leads to better word retrieval. However, word type can be a factor that might affect the retrieval process since certain word types are easier to recall than others.


Introduction
Broca and Wernicke are areas in the brain which were named after the French physician, Paul Broca, and the German physician, Carl Wernicke.In 1860s and 1870s, these physicians discovered kinds of impairment based on the lesions occurring in these two areas.The related disorders were named Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia (Kess, 1992: 285).Research has been conducted on patients with these types of aphasia (e.g.Kolk & Heeschen, 1990;Cornell, Fromkin & Mauner, 1993;Zhang et al., 2006;Tsapkini et al., 2014;Duman, Altınok & Maviş, 2016).However, this paper is not concerned with any type of lesion in these brain areas.In fact, it studies how humans with normal healthy brains function with certain activities in Broca's area in particular.Bever & Chiarello (1974) argued that both hemispheres function for different purposes while processing information related to language and music.The hypothesis was that speech processing is localized in the left hemisphere while music processing is localized in the right hemisphere.However, recent studies that used advanced technology, such as neuro-imaging tests, revealed something different.Using an fMRI scanner, a recent study from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics discovered that Broca's area in the brain region under the left hemisphere can do more than processing and developing language.It can process music, too.It has been found that language and music can influence each other.Kunert et al. (2015) stated that when participants are given a complex combination of tones, it is harder for them to process the structure of a sentence.In their study, the participants, who had about two years of musical training, struggled in answering a comprehension prompt after hearing a sung sentence with complex syntax (a sentence with object-extracted relative clause).The sentence (translated from Dutch "The athletes that the mistress noticed looked out of the window") was sung on a melody where all notes were in-key except for one out-of-key note which occurred at the beginning of the relative clause (ibid: 6).Kunert et al. (2015: 1) suggested that "a language main effect in Broca's area only emerged in the complex music harmony condition, suggesting that a language effect only becomes visible under conditions of increased demands on shared neural resources".The researchers revealed statistical interaction of language and music in Broca's area when the participants encountered a combination of complex linguistic syntax structure and complex musical syntax structure.This shows neural evidence for combined syntactic integration of music and language in Broca's area.Research has also shown close relation between musical exposure, such as pitch awareness, and phonological awareness which was tested through preschoolers' reading skills compared to a control group who had sports training which did not reveal any significant results in relation to phonological awareness (Degé & Schwarzer, 2011).After subjecting typical adults to functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuro-imaging, Ferreri et al. (2013) argued that listening to music impacts word retrieval.The neuro-imaging test revealed higher activation of the left hemisphere of the participants when they encoded the words while listening to background music, as opposed to the other group of participants who recalled less words in silence.Furthermore, Degé and Schwarzer (2017) revealed that some research on verbal memory in childhood relies on the relation between music lessons and retrieval of word lists.In Cognitive Psychology, verbal memory refers to memory of words where verbal information is recollected (Ebbinghaus, 1913).In their study, Brown, Martinez andParsons (2006: 2801) concluded that "whereas music and language may share resources for audition and vocalization, phonological generativity is seen as the major point of cognitive parallelism".
Studies have also highlighted the relation between linguistic abilities in second language learning, namely pronunciation, and musical abilities (e.g.Milovanov et al., 2008;Milovanov, 2009).For example, Milovanov and Tervaniemi (2011) revealed that Finnish subjects with advanced musical abilities showed advanced foreign language pronunciation skills in English along with advanced ability in discriminating musical chords.
More recent studies conform to the hypothesis of shared cognitive mechanisms between language and music (Taylor & Dewhurst, 2017;Chiang et al., 2018;Sun et al., 2018;Asano, Boeckx & Seifert, 2021).In this context, a recent study by Taylor and Dewhurst (2017) conformed to previous research that musical training is associated with enhanced verbal memory.The researchers conducted a perceptual task of word lists chosen from MRC Psycholinguistic Database (Wilson, 1988).The English word lists are categorized into high visual imagery, high auditory imagery, high tactile imagery, and abstract words.The participants are adult native speaker of English (19-30 years old).They were 20 musicians with at least four years of practicing and 20 non-musicians with no exposure to musical training.They have done the task by facing the computer while the words from every list are displayed one by one with two seconds given for each word.Afterwards, the participants were instructed to recall as many of the words as possible from every list on a paper in front of them.The study reported an important finding.It revealed enhancement in verbal memory as a result of musical training where musicians scored higher than non-musicians.Moreover, Asano et al. (2021) highlighted the shared mechanism between the syntax of music and the syntax of language with regard to hierarchy arguing that, despite their different abstract-concrete rule-based control, they follow the same neurocognitive process.In addition, some recent studies shed light on the contribution of music to language therapy (Torppa & Huotilainen, 2019;Shi & Zhang, 2020;Bartolomeo, 2022).According to Torppa and Huotilainen (2019), the musical training aids in the rehabilitation of hearing impairment in children.They concluded with recommendations on how language can be enhanced through music.Similarly, Shi & Zhang (2020) studied the impact of music therapy on language deficits.They concluded that rhythm may contribute to the treatment of aphasia.
The focus of this study is to investigate the interconnection between learning or listening to music and language processing operations, namely verbal retrieval.Despite the fact that language and music have different domains of representations (words in language and chords in music), neural syntactic processes of activation and integration are shared (Johannson, 2008: 418).In particular, the present study aims to further investigate the impact of musical orientation on verbal retrieval based on testing individuals with different levels of musical training and different levels of musical interest.

Significance of the Study
Taylor and Dewhurst's (2017) study on the impact of music on verbal memory recommended longitudinal study at various levels of musical training to examine how it impacts verbal recall.Furthermore, the study implied some shortcomings regarding participants who have some personal traits and different backgrounds that may have affected the findings.The study reported here is a response to this recommendation.It examines, in a totally different context in terms of participants and language, the impact of musical orientation on verbal retrieval by speakers of Jordanian Arabic.To the best of the researchers' knowledge, this is the first study replicating Taylor & Dewhurst (2017) outside the English-speaking world.

Aim of the Study
The present study aims to contribute to previous research regarding the impact of music on verbal memory by replicating Taylor & Dewhurst's (2017) study and applying the perceptual test to participants who show a wide range of musical orientation.The study applies the perceptual test to participants who range in their musical training from beginners to advanced learners.In addition, it applies the perceptual test to participants who range in their musical interest.Furthermore, the paper studies which type of words is easier to recall regardless of musical orientation.The paper aims to answer the following research questions. RQ

Samples and Participants
A total of 60 Jordanians participated in the present study.They are divided into two samples.In the first, the participants are referred to as musicians.They are 30 undergraduate university students who study different majors at the University of Petra, Jordan.They have different levels of musical training: 10 beginners (five males and five females), 10 intermediate learners (six males and four females) and 10 advanced learners (six males and four females)).Beginners are those who have received musical training for at least nine months to less than a year.Intermediate learners are those who have received musical training for one year to less than four years.Advanced musicians are those who have received musical training for four years and more.These participants are trained by a professional music teacher on variant types of musical instruments, such as guitar, piano, violin and drums.They are native speakers of Jordanian Arabic.These students take music lessons at Petra Music, the music hall dedicated to giving music lessons on various instruments at University of Petra.There are sessions designated for each training level.Since these students vary in their level of musical training, they may not refer to themselves as musicians but we labelled them so for the purpose of this study.In the second, the participants are also 30 undergraduate students at the University of Petra.They vary in the majors they study.However, these are non-musicians and never played an instrument before.They vary in the level of musical interest, i.e. they are divided into three sub-groups.Group A which comprises 10 participants who listen to music for less than 30 minutes a day or do not listen to music at all (five males and five females).Group B which comprises 10 participants who listen to music for thirty minutes to less than an hour a day (five males and five females).Group C which comprises10 participants who listen to music for an hour or more a day (four males and six females).Participants in the second sample were selected on the basis of their answers to a brief questionnaire on their interest in music with regard to the time they spend listening to it during the day.In both samples, the participants' age ranges from 19 to 25, with a mean age of 21.Their gender, major, academic year and academic abilities are not taken into consideration.

Task Design and Procedure
Four word lists of 20 words each were chosen from the MRC Psycholinguistic Database (Wilson, 1988) (see Appendix).The selection of word lists was motivated by Taylor and Dewhurst's (2017) study, which the authors of the present paper have replicated.In their study, the selected words ranged in length from three to eight letters and from one to four syllables.
In the study reported here, each list contains 20 words.Since the participants are native speakers of Jordanian Arabic, the word lists were translated into Arabic, their native language.The visual word list contains high visual imagery nouns which the participant can easily visualize, such as ʃaʒara 'tree' and kursi 'chair'.The auditory word list contains high in auditory imagery words representing sounds, such as sarxa 'scream' and nuba:ħ 'bark'.The tactile word list contains words representing tangible sensations, such as xiʃin 'rough' and ħa:d 'sharp'.The abstract word list contains words representing concepts that lack physical properties, such as θiqa 'trust' and naʒa:ħ 'success'.In the present study, the words ranged in length from three to seven letters and from one to four syllables.The word lists were manipulated within groups where the order of each list was rotated in a Latin square for every participant.The dependent variable is the number of words retrieved in every word list.
After signing a consent form, participants sat facing the computer.The word lists were displayed on a PowerPoint slide show where they had a slide, which contained the title of the list, separating every list.However, every word was given two seconds.The transition between the words was automatic but the one between every list was manual where the participant had to press 'space' to proceed to the next list.Before the test began, the participants were given a piece of paper labelled by the word lists and they had to recall as many words as possible in any order from the slide show.They were given clear instructions in Arabic before the test began.The slide show paused for one minute after the end of each list so that the participant would have time to recall the words.When the slideshow paused, the researchers asked the participants to countdown from ten to one.Then, the participants started writing the words they recalled from the list.When the participant finished, he/she pressed 'space' to move to the next list.The duration of this perceptual task was six-eight minutes for each participant.A statistical analysis was carried out to reveal significant differences between the groups and within groups.A T-test and Kruskal-Wallis test were conducted for this purpose in addition to paired comparisons to compare the results of the four word lists regardless of the participants' musical orientation/ background.

Results and Discussion
This section provides the results of the task.A T-test was used to reveal if there are significant differences between the results of musicians and non-musicians.Furthermore, A Kruskal-Wallis test was carried out to reveal significant differences within groups.Finally, paired comparisons were conducted to find out significant differences between the four word lists regardless of the participants' musical background.
Table 1 shows the results of the t-test carried out to answer the first research question regarding the impact of musical training on verbal memory as opposed to lack of musical training.
Previous research have suggested that musicians outperformed non-musicians in tasks that required auditory perception (e.g.Cohen et al., 2011), visual perception (e.g.Sluming et al., 2005) or tactile perception (e.g.Ragert et al., 2004).In a relatively However, in the study reported here, recall scores of musicians for the auditory words, though high, were not significantly different from those of non-musicians (p =.077).This is not exactly in line with Taylor and Dewhurst (2017) who argued that musicians retrieved significantly more words than non-musicians in the auditory word list (ibid.: 817).They suggested that "musicians have an advantage in tasks that require auditory perception or visual perception" (ibid.: 817).In this regard, we suggest that our rather different conclusion may imply that retrieval of auditory words is not only impacted by musical training per se since non-musicians had different levels of musical interest which may also have contributed to enhancing their auditory retrieval ability compared to the absence of any clear musical interest and/or orientation in Taylor and Dewhurst's (2017) non-musician group.Furthermore, since the non-musician sample in our study also used to listen to music for different periods of time, they are definitely exposed to various sounds just like musicians.This could be an indication why their performance was not significantly different from the musicians' in the auditory word list.In this context, one may appreciate Lehmann and Seufert's (2017: 2) suggestion that "auditory words lead to an acoustic-sensory representation, which can be compared to a mental echo and relates to perceptual processing, not to working memory processes".In addition, van Dijk and Kintsch (1983) argued that the processing of auditory information occurs straightly inside the phonological loop requiring lower cognitive capacity.Thus, this could mean that auditory words would be easier to recall regardless of musical background.
Table 2 shows the results of Kruskal-Wallis test for the musician groups according to the three levels tested; beginner, intermediate and advanced.This part answers the second research question.Table 2 shows that there is a pattern in the performance of the three levels of musicians in three word lists, viz.auditory, visual and tactile.There are significant differences between the three levels of musicians in recall scores of these three tasks with an advantage to advanced musicians, followed by intermediates (p <0.05).Moreover, advanced musicians and intermediates show a pattern in these three word types where advanced musicians take the lead, followed by intermediates and beginners.In the auditory word list, advanced musicians scored higher than intermediates (mean= 11.10 and 8.70, respectively) and the latter scored higher than beginners (mean= 8.20).This performance pattern is also evident in visual and tactile related tasks.This finding implies that sufficient musical training of at least one year plays an important role in improving the ability to recall these types of words.In other words, the longer the duration of musical training is, the more words a musician can retrieve (see also Jakobson, Cuddy & Kilgour, 2003).Nonetheless, recall scores of the abstract word list lack this pattern, though partially.In fact, recall scores of both advanced musicians and intermediate musicians in the abstract word list were equally high (mean= 9.10).Paivio (1986) introduced dual-code theory which suggests that concrete words are recalled better than abstract words since concrete words are encoded in sensory and non-sensory features simultaneously.On the other hand, abstract words are encoded in non-sensory features only.It appears that the process of encoding non-sensory features is more active in musicians who received sufficient musical training as opposed to beginners who, again, scored the least in the abstract word list.To verify this, further research is needed.
Table 3 shows the results of Kruskal-Wallis test for the non-musician groups according to the three levels of musical interest which were named Group A, Group B, and Group C. This part answers the third research question which focuses on the extent to which the level of musical interest impacts verbal memory.
As can be seen from Table 3, there are significant differences between the three groups of non-musicians with an advantage to Group C (p <0.05).In all word lists, Group C came in first and Group B second; Group A who listened to music for less than 30 minutes a day or did not listen to music always came last.In the auditory word list, Group C scored a mean of 9.63 and Group B scored a mean of 9.05.In the visual word list, Group C scored a mean of 11.25 and Group B scored a mean of 8.75.In the tactile word list, Group C scored a mean of 10.38 and Group B scored a mean of 9.38.In the abstract word list, Group C scored a mean of 7.75 and Group B scored a mean of 7.50.Although Group C and Group B remained in the first place and second place in the abstract word list, their means were relatively low compared to their recall scores of the other word lists.Nevertheless, the results imply that listening to music for 30 minutes or more a day (groups C and B) makes a difference in verbal retrieval compared to those who listen to music for less than 30 minutes or do not listen to music at all (Group A).Being always at the bottom, Group A recall scores indicate that sporadic listening to music or not listening to it at all may negatively impact verbal retrieval of all sorts words, particularly abstract vocabulary.This further supports the hypothesis of shared cognitive mechanisms between music and language (Chiang et al., 2018;Sun et al., 2018;Asano et al., 2021).In other words, the paired comparisons show which word list was retrieved more by musicians of all levels of musical training and non-musicians of all levels of musical interest.As shown in Table 4, there are significant differences in five paired comparisons across word lists mainly with an advantage to the visual word list (mean=10.03).This indicates that the visual word list is the easiest to recall among the four word types regardless of participants' musical training or otherwise.Recall scores of all participants, musicians and non-musicians combined, were significantly higher for the visual words (mean=10.03)than for the auditory words (mean=8.94).Moreover, they all scored significantly higher in the visual word list than the tactile word list (mean= 10.03 and 8.95, respectively).Similarly, visual word list scores were significantly higher than abstract word list scores (mean= 10.03 and 7.53, respectively).Furthermore, auditory word list scores were significantly higher than abstract word list scores (mean=8.94 and 7.53, respectively).Tactile word list scores were also significantly higher than abstract word list scores (mean=8.95 and 7.53, respectively).Finally.recall scores of the auditory word list (mean=8.94)and the tactile word list (mean=8.95) did not differ significantly from each other, p= .945.Based on these findings, a conclusion can be drawn.Visual words are the easiest to recall and abstract words are the hardest.In his book on visual literacy, Burmark (2002: 11-14) asserted that visual words are often used in instruction since they are stored in long-term memory.Moreover, their tangibility makes them easier to recall (ibid.: 11).Auditory and tactile words come in second place.This confirms van Dijk and Kintsch's (1983) argument that auditory words require less cognitive capacity.Consequently, they are easy to recall.Finally, abstract words are the hardest to recall since they are only encoded in non-sensory features, unlike concrete words, such as visual and tactile words, which are encoded in sensory and non-sensory features that make them easier to recall (Paivio, 1986).
The present study was in parallel with Taylor and Dewhurst (2017) in the main finding that, in general, musicians performed significantly better in retrieving words in the perceptual task and abstract words than non-musicians.Thus, both studies confirm the hypothesis suggesting that music enhances verbal memory.Nevertheless, they slightly differ in terms of significance within the types of words retrieved.The present study revealed that musicians performed significantly better than non-musicians in visual word list, tactile word list and abstract word list.In contrast, Taylor and Dewhurst's (2017) study revealed that musicians retrieved significantly more than non-musicians in auditory, tactile and abstract words.This difference can be justified in Taylor and Dewhurst's (2017) account for differences in their participants' personality traits, musical backgrounds and brain structure.That our participants showed undifferentiated performance on both auditory and tactile word lists may be ascribed to the fact that the non-musicians in our study, unlike those in Taylor and Dewhurst's (2017) study, had (except for Group A) developed an interest in music to the extent that they used to listen to it daily.
With regard to word type, the present study showed that visual words are the easiest to recall regardless of the participants' musical orientation.Furthermore, all participants scored significantly better in visual, auditory and tactile word lists than the abstract word list.This conforms to Taylor and Dewhurst's (2017) finding where all participants scored significantly higher in auditory words and tactile words than abstract words.Thus, this asserts that abstract words are the hardest to recall since they are only encoded in non-sensory features (Paivio, 1986).In both studies, participants scored higher in visual words, tactile words and auditory words than abstract words.Unlike Taylor and Dewhurst's (2017) study where no significant differences were found among visual, tactile and auditory words, the present study reported significant differences among them.This again can be justified by differences in participants' musical background.Regardless, words high in imagery, viz.visual, tactile and auditory, are easier to recall than abstract words (ibid.: 818).A final word, musicians in Taylor and Dewhurst (2017) received at least four years of musical training; in our study, they received musical training for a minimum of nine months up to four years or more.However, the two studies had more common grounds to meet than clash with regard to musicians' and non-musicians' word retrieval achievement.This conclusion suggests that the minimal duration of systematic musical training that can enhance verbal retrieval is around one year.Anyway, this has to await further research to confirm or reject.

Conclusion and Recommendations
The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the relationship between learning or listening to music and language processing operations in Broca's area, namely verbal retrieval.It studied the effect of musical orientation on verbal retrieval based on testing musicians with different levels of musical training and non-musicians with different levels of musical interest.The researchers replicated Taylor and Dewhurst's (2017) study by applying the perceptual test of four types of words in Arabic to Jordanian participants who showed a wide range of musical orientation.First, the study revealed that verbal memory was enhanced by musical training where musicians, despite their level of musical training, scored significantly better than non-musicians in the verbal recall test.Second, the level of musical training contributes to improving the ability to recall different types of words where advanced musicians scored higher than intermediates and beginners.Third, non-musicians who spend more time than others listening to music daily scored better in the given perceptual task than those who spend less time listening to music or do not listen to music at all.This further supports the hypothesis of shared cognitive mechanisms between music and language (Johannson, 2008;Kunert et al., 2015;Taylor and Dewhurst, 2017).Finally, among the four types of words, visual words appeared to be the easiest to recall since they are high in imagery.In contrast, abstract words are the hardest to recall given that they only have non-sensory features, unlike concrete words, such as visual, auditory and tactile words (Paivio, 1986).To conclude, exposure to music does affect the retrieval process of words.However, the type of word can be considered a factor that might affect the retrieval process since certain types of words are easier to recall than others.
The focus of this study was on the impact of musical orientation on word retrieval in Arabic.Further research may adopt this experiment and apply it to other language processes such as, sentence retrieval in Arabic.Moreover, a longitudinal case study of musical training is recommended to find out whether this hypothesis is applicable in real time experiment.Finally, further research may apply the perceptual task to learners of second or foreign languages to see whether their level of musical orientation can enhance their learning and retrieval of vocabulary and thus reduce the occurrence of lexical errors that sometimes lead to a total breakdown of communication (cf.Diab & Awada, 2022).

ADHERENCE TO ETHICAL STANDARDS
Ethic Declarations.This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of (University of Petra, Amman-Jordan).Ethical approval number is Q3/1/2020.Data Availability.The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Funding.No funding was received to conduct this research.Conflict of interest.The authors do not have any potential conflict of interests that may influence the decision to publish this article.
Authors contribution.All authors contributed to the study conception and design.Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Noor F. Al-Yasin and Jihad M. Hamdan.The first draft of the manuscript was written by Noor F. Al-Yasin and Jihad M. Hamdan and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript.All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Open Access.This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
1. To what extent does musical training impact verbal memory?RQ 2. To what extent does the level of musical training impact verbal memory?RQ 3. To what extent does the level of musical interest impact verbal memory?RQ 4. Which type of words was the easiest to recall regardless of the participants' musical orientation?

Table 1 T
Taylor and Dewhurst (2017)les(Word Lists)According to Type of Participants(Musicians vs. Non-musicians)Taylor and Dewhurst (2017)posited that musicians demonstrated an enhanced retrieval ability for auditory, tactile and abstract words.Likewise, the current study, as is clearly displayed in Table1, shows that musicians performed significantly better than non-musicians in three tasks out of four, viz.visual word list (mean= 11.50), tactile word list (mean= 9.47) and abstract word list (mean= 8.67) where sig is <0.05.This generally corroborates the findings ofTaylor and Dewhurst (2017)which revealed enhancement in verbal memory as a result of musical training where musicians scored significantly better than non-musicians in the verbal recall test.

Table 2
Kruskal-Wallis Test for Musicians According to Musical Training Level

Table 3
Kruskal-Wallis Test for Non-musicians According to Musical Interest Level Table 4 answers the fourth research: which type of words was the easiest to recall regardless of the participants' musical orientation?

Table 4
Mean, Standard Deviation and Paired Comparisons Across Word Lists