GCN516 Brain and Learning

Project Report

The Effect of Binaural Beats on

Working Memory Capacity
Amira Maisarah binti Mohd Don P-UM0384/19
Group 6 Annis Shafika binti Amran P-UM0005/20
Iffah Adlina binti Ibrahim P-UM0009/20
Maryam binti Adam P-UM0385/19
 Introduction
● One of the most important cognitive skills for students is working memory (WM) due to
its role in improving their achievement in school (Maehler and Schuchardt, 2016).
● A sub-component of an overarching cognitive skill of memory alongside other
components of short-term memory, sensory memory and long-term memory.
● Employed in concept formation, control processes, mnemonic strategies (Cowan, 2014),
sentence recalling (Alloway and Ledwon, 2014), spatial, verbal and arithmetic domains (Bresgi
et al., 2017).
● There are three main types of methodologies practiced by students in the classroom
(Rowe, Titterington, Holmes, Henry and Taggart , 2019):
○ Environment adaptation
○ Direct WM training with or without training instructions
○ Indirect training skills (phonological awareness & physical activity)
● Educators’ objectives for the students is to produce near transfer effects, far transfer
effects and generalisation (Colmar and Double, 2017) which can be achieved by different
interventions
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 Research Gap & Question
● Educators are required to address attention first prior WM to properly conduct
classroom WM interventions whereas heterogeneity is evidently present in conducting
computerised WM interventions leading to indefinite inferences (Colmar and Double, 2017).
● A standardisation of method is needed to improve WM and the current research is
proposing another methodology which is the utilisation of binaural auditory beats in
modulating WM.
● Past studies were conducted in samples of populations from different countries such
as Spain, United States of America, The Netherlands, and Germany whereby the
common age range of participants were from 18 to 40 years old.
● There is still yet an opportunity to observe the modulation effects of binaural auditory
beats towards WM abilities of the Malaysian population specifically young adults.
● Malaysian young adults embark on tertiary education of their choice after completing
secondary education while pursuing other activities such as a having a career, honing
life skills and networking, in which exert an excessive demand to the WM function.

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Research Objective
● Two main objectives:
○ To investigate the effects of alpha binaural auditory beats on WM of young
adults using the Automated Operation Span Task (AOSPAN).
○ To investigate the possibility of the auditory beats stimulation in education
and working environment

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 Literature review 1

Working Memory
● The brain’s working memory (WM) refers to the human memory system which temporarily
maintains, stores, or manipulates information for cognitive tasks such as learning and
reasoning.
● It is a limited capacity system because it can only keep a limited amount of
information in a short period of time (Pezzulo, 2007).
● WM is different from short-term memory, which typically refers to remembering information
for a short time, usually a few seconds (Alloway and Copello, 2013). The process of repeating the
information and carrying out the task relies on our working memory.

● There is also a close relationship between working memory and long-term memory. Long-
term memory refers to our childhood memories or the knowledge that we have acquired and
remembered over the years.
● Working memory is important for various complex tasks such as reading comprehension,
mental arithmetic, and word problems to basic tasks ( Alloway and Gregory, 2012).
● A variety of strategies or training could help to improve the working memory capacity which
might help individual to perform at their best.
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 Literature review 2

Binaural Beats on Working Memory

● Binaural beats are described as auditory perceptions that are presented separately on
the left and right ear by the two tones of slightly different frequencies. The brain activity
changes automatically if the binaural beats match the frequency that corresponds to
the alpha wave spectrum (Kraus and Porubanová, 2015).

● Binaural beats could affect various aspects of cognition or mood states for an individual such
as attention, memory, creativity, and alertness (Beauchene et al., 2017).

● It is also an efficient way of increasing long-term memory in order to retrieve, identify, and
enhance the encoding of new data (Garcia-Argibay et al., 2019).

● There are several factors that affect the binaural beats on cognitive functions such as the
specific frequency of the binaural beats, the targeted population, and the methods used to
detect the possible improvements in working memory ability (Kraus and Porubanová, 2015).

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 Literature review 3

Binaural Beats Vs. Non-binaural Beats

Binaural Beats
Different regions of the brain are significantly
activated by disparate stimulations of distinct
sound frequency detected in binaural beats (Goes,
2018).
Non-binaural Beats
Includes Vocal Melodies, musical beats that are
translated into soundwaves and assisted by
lyrical melodies that synchronize with the musical
soundwaves (Weiss et al., 2012).

High possibility in boosting cortical Different voices of different pitch have significant
synchronization aside from stimulation in the advantages in memory enhancing (Weiss et al., 2012).
hemisphere, leading to improved brain
processes (Da Silva et al., 2015; Resendiz et al., 2015; Rios and Influence of vocalization reflects a higher rate of
Glanzmann, 2015; Beauchene et al., 2017).
arousal where female pitch has higher memory
influence compared to male due to emotional
Improves cognitive processes, provide
influences (Belin et al., 2008; Weiss et al.,2012).
sensations such as relaxation, altered conscious
state such as producing lucid dreams as well as
improving one’s creativity (De Lima et al., 2014; Resendiz
et al.,2015; Zampi, 2016).
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 Literature review 4

Operation Span (OS) Task

The Ospan task is notified as a test to predict intelligence as it involves the process of
information manipulation and memorizing in problem solving (Conway et al., 2002; Unsworth and
Engle, 2007).

WM span tasks usually involve a simple span task around 3 to 5 items and having an
average of 5 to 9 items maximum for complex span memory task (Cowan, 2001).

Applies mnemonic strategy such as information chunking processes which enable

tested individuals to group stimuli together in smaller independent units which are
easier for the brain to capture or memorize (Chekaf et al., 2018).

Resulting in the suggestion of simple span tasks in measuring WM as it is dedicated to

item memorization and is rather a passive process.

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 Literature review 4

Automated Operation Span (OS) Task

Automated complex span tasks can be used to test more rapidly in a computed manner which allows the result to
be produced instantly.

The trials created by AOspan tasks are randomly generated, ensuring no bias in the test in case the test subject
tries to memorize for upcoming replicates or memorized due to repeated tests.

The result from the AOspan test will depict individual’s task processing, feedback processing as well as storage
accuracy.

Test subjects will be asked to solve mathematical equations and then will be shown a letter to be recalled at the
end of the test.

The final result will show five distinct scores which is

(a) the sum of items in all trials recalled correctly, also known as absolute storage score
(b) sum of errors made or processing errors
(c) sum of items recalled correctly or partial storage score
(d) number of unanswered processing problems within time limit or speed error
(e) accuracy scores or the number of processing problem incorrectly answered (Redick et al., 2012)
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 methodology

✘ Participants
○ 5 young adults (age 25-29)
○ working
○ do not wear hearing aids
○ do not have tinnitus
○ do not suffer from epilepsy or ADHD

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 methodology

✘ Automated Operation Span Task

○ OSPAN measures working memory capacity (Engle et al.,
2012)
○ A computer-administered AOSPAN which works automatically
was developed (Unsworth et al., 2005)

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 methodology

✘ Automated Operation Span Task

○ Task:

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 methodology

✘ Automated Operation Span Task

○ Recall:

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 methodology

✘ Automated Operation Span Task

○ Feedback:

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 methodology

✘ Automated Operation Span Task

○ The first score, OSPAN absolute score, shows the total of all
correctly recalled sets of letters in the correct order (Unsworth
et al., 2005)
○ This score were used in the analysis - stable in terms of test-
retest reliability when repeating the test after few minutes,
weeks, or months (Kraus & Porubanova, 2015)

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 methodology

✘ Binaural Beats Stimulation

○ A subjective auditory sensation when two tones with slight
difference in frequency are presented to each ear separately.
○ Listener will hear a resultant sound with an amplitude which
changes with a frequency equal to the frequency differences of
presented tones (Kasprzak, 2011)

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 methodology

✘ Binaural Beats Stimulation

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 methodology

✘ Binaural Beats Stimulation

○ Audacity program - produce two tones, 200 and 210 Hz
○ The difference in frequencies is 10 Hz - alpha frequency range.
○ 1st recording - sound of the sea overlapped with binaural beats
○ 2nd recording - sound of the sea without binaural beats

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 Study process

Day 1

listen to
1st 1st 2nd
AOSPAN recording AOSPAN
task for 10 task
minutes

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 Study process

Day 2

listen to
1st 2nd 2nd
AOSPAN recording AOSPAN
task for 10 task
minutes

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 result

✘ Table 1 shows the results for the OSPAN absolute score obtained by five participants
(1 male, 4 females). The score shows the participant’s total of all correctly recalled sets of
letters in the order.
✘ First day: The absolute score increase for participants 2,3 and 4 but decrease for
participants 1 and 5.
✘ Second day: The absolute score decrease for all participants except for participant 5
which shows no changes for first and second task.

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 Discussion

A. Majority of participants showed improvement in the AOSPAN task performance after the
implementation of alpha binaural auditory beats for 10 minutes
a. Similar previous findings by Beauchene, Abaid, Moran, Diana and Leonessa (2016)
b. Alpha wave oscillation was present in tasks which measures working memory function
(Jaiswal et al.,2019; Makada et al.,2019)
B. Several participants’ performance decreased after listening to the binaural auditory beats
a. Presence of the ocean waves audio embedded with the binaural beat stimulus
b. A type of naturalistic sound which affects their psychological state
c. Modify a person’s psychological state in inducing relaxation and promote more mind-
wandering (Vernon et al., 2014)
d. Also an explanation for the findings in condition 2 (no embedded binaural auditory beats)

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 Discussion
Limitations & Future Suggestions

✘ small number of participants

○ future research a bigger sample size

✘ lacks data from EEG

○ future study to include EEG readings to further support results

✘ use of one stimulus

○ future study to use more than one stimulus: audio and visual
stimuli
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 Discussion
Limitations & Future Suggestions

✘ the significant different number of male and female participant

○ Tobias (1965) stated that men perceive a higher frequency
binaural beats compare to women

✘ future research may include both children adult for comparison

✘ binaural beats research focused primarily on the effect during

retrieval process
○ future research can assess binaural beats effect during both
encoding and retrieval phase.
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 Conclusion
a) Upon completion of this study, the improvement of working memory capacity as
a consequence of alpha-range binaural beats stimulation was able to be visualized
in which the result supports that alpha binaural beats are able to enhance
memory.

b) Furthermore, with the result of this study, we were able to contribute to the
number of existing studies on the effects of binaural beats which is low, as well
as further support the theory that binaural beats do improve memory.

c) Lastly, the application of this study increases the chance to enhance and maintain
greater cognitive performance by implementing binaural beats into daily
regimens such as yoga, meditation, and exercise.
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 Credits
Special thanks to everyone involved in the process of idea
pitching especially:

✘ Associate Professor Dr Aswati Hamzah for providing

thorough guidance throughout the study process.
✘ Mr. Jakub Kraus for allowing us to adopt the methodology
from his study into the research project.

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