VirSchool: The effect of background music and immersive display systems on memory for facts learned in an educational virtual environment

Computers & Education 58 (2012) 490–500

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VirSchool: The effect of background music and immersive display systems on memory for facts learned in an educational virtual environment Eric Fassbender a, *, Deborah Richards b, Ayse Bilgin c, William Forde Thompson d, Wolfgang Heiden e a

School of Creative Arts and Humanities, Charles Darwin University, Building Orange 11.2.17c, Ellengowan Drive, Darwin, NT 0909, Australia Computing Department, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia c Statistics Department, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia d Psychology Department, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia e Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Sankt Augustin, Germany b

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 10 March 2011 Received in revised form 28 August 2011 Accepted 1 September 2011

Game technology has been widely used for educational applications, however, despite the common use of background music in games, its effect on learning has been largely unexplored. This paper discusses how music played in the background of a computer-animated history lesson affected participants’ memory for facts. A virtual history lesson was presented to participants with different background stimuli (music or no-music) to test the effect of music on memory. To test the role of immersion on memory and its possible relationship to the music, two different display systems (3-monitor display system or immersive Reality Center) were used in the study. Overall, participants remembered a significantly higher number of facts using the 3-monitor display system, particularly if no background music was played in the second half of the history lesson. Conversely, for participants using the Reality Center, significantly higher recall of facts was found when participants listened to music in the second half of the history lesson. Cognitive load/overload and (un-)familiarity with the technology are offered as explanations. Crown Copyright Ó 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Virtual reality Background music Media in education Memory Cognition

1. Introduction It has long been recognized that “motivation is a key factor in the success or failure of education” (Ramaley & Zia, 2005) and “fun and passion are key ingredients of the learning process” (Papert, 2005, p. 6). If we accept that “Games [.] motivate via fun” (Mitchell & SavillSmith, 2004, p. 58), the interest in using video games in education is hardly surprising. Despite the intuitive appeal of games for educational purposes and the observation that “educators often bemoan the fact that video games are compelling and school is not” (Gee, 2003, p. 68), there are only a few studies (e.g. River City (Clarke, Ayres, & Sweller, 2005) and Quest Atlantis (Barab, Thomas, Dodge, Carteaux, & Tuzun, 2005)) that clearly show that game technology can deliver significant learning improvements or that the benefits justify the effort involved. One particular genre of computer games that attracts a very large number of players is so-called Computer Role-Playing Games (RPG). The networked versions of such computer RPGs are called Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG), which include e.g. World of Warcraft,1Lineage 22 and Age of Conan.3 These MMORPG attract, as the name suggests, a truly massive number of players from around the globe. As an example of the number of players that play these games, in 2008, in its fourth year, World of Warcraft alone brought together 11 million computer gamers (Fahey, 2008) from almost every corner of the world. Quite often the story that is built into these 3D adventure and role-playing games is highly complex and requires players to remember many names of foreign people and places in order to successfully complete a given quest. Thus, memory as a basic human function serves an

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ61 8 8946 6836, þ61 415 424040 (mobile); fax: þ61 8 8946 7266. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (E. Fassbender), [email protected] (D. Richards), [email protected] (A. Bilgin), [email protected] (W.F. Thompson), [email protected] (W. Heiden). 1 http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/, last accessed: 18.12.2008. 2 http://www.lineage2.com/, last accessed: 18.12.2008. 3 http://www.ageofconan.com/, last accessed: 18.12.2008. 0360-1315/$ – see front matter Crown Copyright Ó 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.09.002

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important role in playing and learning within computer games. If these games are to become a part of the classroom of the 21st century, learning designers and practitioners will need a better understanding of their educational benefits and usage. This understanding will need to include which factors influence learning. One factor found in almost all games is the use of background music. There is evidence in the literature that music may have an effect on learning. For example, the study by Anderson and Fuller (2010) found that music with lyrics, from Billboard Magazine’s top 100 hit list, had a detrimental effect on performance in a reading comprehension task of junior high school students. In contrast, the study by Furnham and Strbac (2002) on the use of instrumental music shows a different effect on similar tasks. In fact, there is evidence that it may even improve performance in a logic task (Furnham, Trew, and Sneade, 1999). Furthermore, tempo and loudness of the music is shown to have an effect on reading comprehension (Thompson, Schellenberg, & Letnic, 2011). Despite the apparent connection between music and cognitive tasks and the common use of music in computer games, the effect of background music on learning/memory has rarely been studied. These studies and related literature are considered next. 2. Related literature Research into the effect of music on memory and learning in virtual environments is highly multidisciplinary with connections to video games, virtual environments and music as well as memory, psychology, learning and teaching. While the exploration of music in computer games and its effect on cognitive performance is a new area of research, the relationship between music and education was made long ago as evidenced in the following statement: Enough has been said to show that music has a power of forming the character, and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young. The study is suited to the stage of youth, for young persons will not, if they can help, endure anything which is not sweetened by pleasure, and music has a natural sweetness. (Aristotle, 1885, p. 7) In this quote, Aristotle identifies pleasure (perhaps better understood today as fun) that is associated with music as a motivator for learning. More recently, Crncec, Wilson, and Prior (2006) cite a large number of studies that show the beneficial effects of music lessons on spatial abilities and general intelligence. Aristotle and Crncec et al. set up a link between music and fun and fun and learning. They show that music is not an isolated ‘module’ in the brain. Rather, music is interconnected with a number of cognitive functions and may thus also have an effect on memory. The link of music, fun and learning has been investigated before the era of sophisticated video games. For example, Weisskoff (1981) found that music motivated students to continue working on a language game task, although this did not lead to increased learning performance. Ilie and Thompson (2011) showed that music listening has an effect on performance of two types of cognitive tasks: creativity and speed of processing. The authors provided additional evidence that these effects were mediated by changes in mood and arousal following exposure to music. First, it is well known that “positive mood enables individuals to think more creatively and perform better on creative problem solving tasks” (Ilie & Thompson, 2011, p. 248, see also Isen, 1984; Isen, 2000; Isen & Christianson, 1999; Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987; Isen & Means, 1983). Furthermore, it has been shown that arousal and reaction times are related and performance is best at an intermediate level of arousal (Berlyne, 1967; Doerr & Hokanson, 1965; Fiske & Maddi, 1961; Sarason, 1980; Solomon & Corbit, 1974; Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). Memory for music is overwhelmingly determined by pitch and temporal relations. For example, people recognize the tunes “Happy birthday”, “Pop goes the weasel” or “Mary had a little lamb” whether performed on a piano, flute, harpsichord, or guitar. However, other properties of sound may also have influences on memory, particularly for unfamiliar music. It is commonly observed that listeners can recognize songs quickly when scanning through radio stations, and in radio contests that require identification of brief excerpts of recordings (e.g., “Name that Tune”). Schellenberg, Iverson, and McKinnon (1999) reported evidence that such rapid recognition is based on memory for the timbre of songs, where timbre refers to the global sound quality of the recording and orchestration of a particular song. In a study by Halpern and Müllensiefen (2008), participants were asked to give explicit memory judgments for a list of 80 tunes, which included 40 that had been recently heard. In Experiment 1, half of the 40 previously heard tunes differed in timbre. Timbre change significantly impaired explicit memory for the previously heard tunes, indicating that music is partially encoded in terms of its timbre. Beal (1985) conducted a study in which listeners were presented with pairs of conventional chords that differed in timbre. Musicians outperformed non-musicians in recognizing the same chord played on different instruments. However, when chord structures not conforming to the rules of tonal harmony were presented, musicians and non-musicians performed equally poorly in recognizing identical chords played on different instruments. The results suggest that timbre is relevant to short-term memory for chords, and changes in timbre may disrupt memory. In regards to music in video games, an early meta-study by Randel, Morris, Wetzel, and Whitehill (1992) found that the use of educational video games and simulations leads to a higher retention rate. Video games were found to have a higher likelihood to motivate students to learn as compared to traditional classroom instruction. Randel et al. state that “given the interest that games invoke and allowing for different learning styles or preferences, using simulations/games should be considered [for education]” (Randel et al., 1992, p. 270). However, the studies that Randel et al. reviewed in their meta-analysis date back to the 1960’s and it is likely that the computer games used for those studies were rather rudimentary compared to the capabilities of contemporary video games. Thus, it is possible that contemporary video games could be even more powerful as educational tools. With regards to music and its effects on learning and other tasks, the existing literature suggests that listening to music can improve spatial temporal abilities (Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky, 1993), positively affect performance in a paper-folding-and-cutting task (Thompson, Schellenberg, & Husain, 2001) and improve participants’ performance in a maze finding task (McFarland & Kennison, 1988). Furthermore, it has been shown that surgeons perform better in a backward counting task when listening to music (Allen & Blascovich, 1994). A recent meta-analysis of studies about background music on non-musical behavior. Kaempfe et al. (2010), however, suggests that on average listening to background music slightly impairs memory processes and is more beneficial for increasing mood and sports performance. While positive effects of musical training have been identified (Aristotle, 1885; Crncec et al., 2006; Rauscher et al., 1997), one study showed that background music and environmental sounds in multimedia learning had a detrimental effect on memory (Moreno & Mayer,

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2000). On the other hand, Mann (2008) makes a connection between sound, memory and the design of multimedia (teaching) material that provides a compelling case for the use of sound to enhance learning. He argues that while purely visual information and instructions are often ignored, missed or forgotten, “multimedia sound is both durable and resistant to interference and forgetting” (p.1157). Similarly, a number of studies (e.g. Mayer & Moreno, 2003; Mann, 1997) have found that combining sound with text and/or diagrams delivered better learning outcomes than text or diagrams alone. Thus, suitable sound events should be added to accompany imagery that is intended for teaching and learning purposes (Mann, 2008, p. 1162). While Mann (2008) provides guidance for designing instructional multimedia with sound, no suggestions are offered that are specific to the role and use of music in educational video games. Potential evidence for the effect of music in video games on cognitive performance comes from adjacent areas. First, music is routinely used as an accompaniment to movies, and underscoring is known to help direct attention to the film by highlighting it (Boltz, Schulkind, & Kantra, 1991). Furthermore, Boltz et al. (1991) found that memory for movie scenes improved when accompanied by mood-congruent music (which is similar to that in video games). Second, words set to music are interpreted as more meaningful and persuasive (Thompson & Russo, 2004) and in turn, meaningful information is more likely to be encoded and remembered later. Third, music is known to have significant effects on mood and arousal levels. Enhanced mood and arousal are associated with enhanced cognitive processing, including faster speed of processing. Our emotional state influences our cognitive performance (Schellenberg, in press). Better cognitive processing should lead to better memory for the processed information (Ilie & Thompson, 2011). In video games, music is useful in creating (Järvinen, 2002, p. 119) and enhancing (Adams, 2002, p. 4) atmosphere, however unfortunately, the authors of these two papers did not look at music in video games from a learning perspective. This link, however, was explored in three studies that investigated the effect of music on cognitive processes in video games (Alin & Norlin, 1987; North & Hargreaves, 1999; Yamada, 2002). The contradictory results of these studies (some beneficial, some not), is possibly due to different experimental designs, different sample sizes and different participant cohorts. In addition, the technologies available at the time of these studies might have caused the differences between the findings. The lack of knowledge in this area is acknowledged by Zehnder and Lipscomb (2006) who state that “there are very few studies of music in video games available” (p. 241). Thus, it was important to investigate this area further. Another area that seems to be related to memory performance in virtual environments is the level of immersion and feeling of presence within the environment where a display system that has a wider field of view is accepted to be more immersive than another display system with a narrower field of view (Slater, Steed, & Chrysanthou, 2002) and while immersion is related to the feeling of presence (Slater et al., 2002) it is not necessarily related to improved learning (Moreno & Mayer, 2002; Persky et al., 2009). However, Richards, Dras, Porte, and Taylor (2009) found that a higher level of immersion and presence may aid learning indirectly. In their experiments they investigated the connection of immersion, presence and learning by comparing a Reality Center, a 3-monitor display system and a single-monitor display system. They found that a single-screen presentation resulted in similar learning outcomes as a much more immersive ‘Reality Center’ despite the fact that the Reality Center participants felt significantly more immersed then those participants who used the single and three screen configurations. Furthermore, while the Reality Center was found to be more enjoyable and was preferred by the participants this preference did not result in improved learning. Even though there were no significant differences in how much was learned in the different conditions, the researchers conclude that a more immersive environment was statistically significantly preferred and thus, while the greater sense of immersion provided by the Reality Center may not assist learning directly, it may indirectly encourage and enhance the learning experience as a whole. Similarly, Mania et al. (2001) used a 15-min seminar in a real, 3D desktop, 3D Head Mounted Display (HMD) and Audio-only scenario. Their findings show that feeling of presence is not related to memory performance in any of the conditions. Furthermore, they found that memory recall was significantly higher for the real seminar when compared with the 3D head-mounted display (most immersive condition apart from the real condition) and the audio-only condition. This was not the case when the real condition was compared with the 3D desktop version. This comparison showed that the real condition and the 3D desktop version were equally effective in terms of memory performance. Further analyses showed that recall for the desktop version of the seminar was better than the more immersive HMD version. However, although immersion and presence may not be directly related to learning, the combination of an immersive environment with background music may yield different results. 3. Research question From the above findings in the literature, the question arises whether video games/virtual environments and the associated music have any influence on how much players remember from the presented information. Furthermore, by measuring how much was remembered would also provide some measure of the effect of music to attract and retain the participant’s attention. If some types of music in the virtual world were shown to improve memory retention, it would provide persuasive evidence that virtual environments and music should be integrated into the educational process of our children. To contribute to our understanding of the educational value of video games and music therein, these variables were explored via the investigation of the research question: How does background music affect human memory of facts that are conveyed in a virtual environment? Given the graphic and immersive nature of the experience provided by a virtual environment we explored this question using two alternative display systems (3-monitor display system or immersive Reality Center). This allowed us to test the role of immersion on memory and its possible relationship to the music. 4. Method As our interest was not in music in general, but the role of background music in video games and virtual environments for learning, we used a video game construction set to create a virtual environment. The creation of this virtual learning environment allowed us to test the effect(s) of different musical conditions on the memory of users. Instrumental music was chosen as this was used by others who investigated music in relation to cognitive processes (Allen & Blascovich, 1994; Boltz, 2001, 2004; Boltz et al., 1991; Husain, Thompson, & Schellenberg,

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2002; Thompson, & Schellenberg, 2002; McFarland & Kennison, 1988). The choice of instrumental music is further supported by Pring and Walker (1994) who found that music with lyrics interferes with other brain processes. To answer the research question, a computer-animated history lesson, called VirSchool (Virtual School, see Fig. 1), was created which used the history of the Macquarie Lighthouse in Sydney as the basis for two experiments. We chose to create a non-interactive virtual environment (using video game technology), because a) it has been shown that interactivity may interfere with the experience of story (Bizzocchi & Woodbury, 2003) and b) to provide better experimental control of the variables. Thompson et al. (2001) suggest that the famous (non-video game related) so-called Mozart effect, central to the study by Rauscher et al. (1993), has nothing to do with Mozart in particular but is due to increased arousal and lifted mood that are influenced by tempo and mode (major, minor) of the music that is being played. Due to these findings and the differing results for the tempo of musical stimuli in (North & Hargreaves, 1999; Thompson, Schellenberg & Husain, 2001; Yamada, 2002), it was decided to investigate the effect of changes in tempo further. 4.1. Experiment 1 The first experiment (described in detail in Richards, Fassbender, Bilgin, & Thompson, 2008), presented different musical stimuli (4 computer game soundtracks in 5 tempo and pitch combinations) in the background of the audio-visual presentation of the history topic in a Reality Center (SGI, 2009), a highly immersive, semi-cylindrical 3 projector display system. Fig. 2 shows how each of the 5 manipulations were performed on the 4 tracks selected from pilot-tests (’town_03’ from Oblivion, ‘The friendly arms inn’ from Baldur’s Gate, ‘Temple’ from World of Warcraft, ‘Easthaven in Peace’ from Icewind Dale). A control group (Condition 10) was assigned to a ‘No Music’ condition. Results from Experiment 1 showed that the use of the musical track ‘town_03.mp3’ of the soundtrack from the ‘Oblivion’ computer role playing game resulted in a statistically significant improvement in the number of facts that participants remembered correctly from the VirSchool history lesson as compared to the ‘No Music’ control group. 4.2. Experiment 2 The musical track from Experiment 1 (town_03.mp3 from Oblivion Soundtrack) and the attributes of slow tempo (92 Beats Per Minute/ BPM) and low pitch (2 semitones down from original pitch) were used for Experiment 2 as the sole musical stimulus. The music is characterized by a new age style, composed in the major mode, and containing short melodic phrases accompanied by an expansive synthesized orchestral accompaniment, often using a strings pad timbre. At certain points in the music a second flute sound is introduced such that two melodies are interweaved. The dynamic level varies throughout the music, with crescendos at some moments and diminuendos at other moments. However the music is consistently peaceful and gentle, and has a positive valence. In addition to background music as a variable, we investigated how two different display systems (3-monitor display system vs. Reality Center as described later) influenced participants’ remembrance of historical facts. Pretest, experimental and posttest data in Experiment 2 were collected with questionnaires because of the systematic, representative, objective and quantifiable data resulting from this method (Isaac & Michael, 1985, p. 128). Questionnaires covered 4 categories – biographical data (seven questions about age, gender, first/second language, level of interest in history, tendency to become immersed in an activity), memory of facts from the VirSchool history lesson (thirty multiple-choice questions about facts (e.g. names and dates) of the historical topic presented in the experiment), participants’ preferences in regards to the different parts of the video narration (twenty three questions), and participants’ feeling of immersion into the virtual environment (five questions). For this part of the questionnaire, ordinal and nominal scales were used in Likert scale responses to record participants’ previous experience with playing video games and playing a musical instrument. Great care was taken to phrase the questions to avoid ‘lumping’ of answers based on the suggestions of Gardner (2007). The complexity and type of questions in both halves of the experiment were similar. The first half contained three questions about years/ dates, four questions about names (places, persons), three questions about numbers and five questions about other uncategorized information. In the second half there were two questions about years/dates, five questions about names (places, persons), six questions about numbers and two questions about other uncategorized information. For Experiment 2 we used a ‘Within Subjects – Repeated Measures - Design’ with one within subjects factor (Background Music, No Background Music) and two between subjects factors (Stimuli Order – ‘Music First’, ‘No Music First’ and Display System – ‘Reality Center’, ‘3-monitor display system’). In the present experiment this means that each participant received two conditions in the same experiment session – the stimulus, ’Background Music’ (Music) and the control condition, ‘No Background Music’ (No Music). The stimulus and control condition were either presented in the Reality Center or in the 3-monitor display system.

Fig. 1. The finished computer-animated video narration of the history of the Macquarie Lighthouse (VirSchool) in wide screen resolution (3072  768 pixels).

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Fig. 2. Diagram of the tempo and pitch manipulations used in Experiment 1. The four squares inside the bigger rectangles represent the four musical pieces from the different computer game soundtracks (Oblivion, Baldur’s Gate, World of Warcraft, Icewind Dale).

The duration of the VirSchool history lesson was 10:55 min (plus 43 s introduction without stimuli ¼ 11:38 min), which was split into two halves with one stimulus being assigned to the first half and the other stimulus assigned to the second half. Fig. 3 shows the two versions of the VirSchool history lesson that were created. One version featured ‘Music’ in the first half and ‘No Music’ in the second half (see Stimuli Order Group 1 in Fig. 3) and the second version had ‘No Music’ in the first half and ‘Music’ in the second half (see Stimuli Order Group 2 in Fig. 3). Reversing the order of the stimuli ensured that any observations of significant differences between ‘Music’ and ‘No Music’ were due to the stimuli themselves and not because of the order that stimuli were presented to participants. In the remainder of this article we will refer to these two versions of the VirSchool history lesson as ‘Stimuli Order Group 1’ and ‘Stimuli Order Group 2’ or SOG 1 and SOG 2. The first half of the VirSchool history lesson played for 5:32 min while the second half played for 5:23 min. The slight difference in length was due to a sectional break that could only be made after a sentence was finished by the narrator-Avatar. 4.2.1. Participants Participants were recruited from the student population at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia by advertisement on campus and in a number of lectures. The sample size in Experiment 2 was 48 undergraduate students (28 female, 20 male) aged between 18 and 43 years old (mean 22.7 years of age, std ¼ 4.67). Eighteen participants indicated English as their first language while 30 participants answered that English was their ‘second or other’ language. Table 1 shows that 12 participants saw the VirSchool history lesson in SOG 1 (’Music’ in the first half and ‘No Music’ in the second half) in the Reality Center, while 12 participants saw the VirSchool history lesson in SOG 2 (’No Music’ in the first half and ‘Music’ in the second half) in the Reality Center. Similarly, 12 participants saw the VirSchool history lesson in SOG 1 in the

Fig. 3. The experimental design included two versions of the VirSchool history lesson.

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Table 1 Allocation of participants to display systems and stimuli order groups.

3-monitor display system and 12 participants saw the VirSchool history lesson in SOG 2 in the 3-monitor display system. This means that overall 24 participants watched the VirSchool history lesson in the Reality Center (12 participants in SOG 1 and 12 participants in SOG 2) and 24 participants watched the VirSchool history lesson in the 3-monitor display system (12 participants in SOG 1 and 12 participants in SOG 2). 4.2.2. Procedure The study was conducted in three stages: 1) Pretest: participants answered a short questionnaire about biographical data. 2) Experiment: Each participant watched the VirSchool history lesson alone while sitting in the center spot of the Reality Center or the 3monitor display system. Participants listened to the Avatar and the background music through Sennheiser HD 280 stereo headphones. Participants were given the option of using a volume dial to adjust the volume of the narration (and embedded background music) to their individual comfort-level. All participants listened to one half of the VirSchool history lesson with background music and the other half without background music in SOG 1 or SOG 2. 3) Posttest: After watching the VirSchool history lesson, each participant was seated at a desk in a different section of the laboratory separated by a curtain from the positions of Stage 1 and 2 to reduce visual distractions by researchers and other participants and while wearing noise-canceling earmuffs (to reduce aural distractions). Participants then answered a questionnaire containing multiple-choice questions about facts that were presented by the Avatar in the VirSchool history lesson. Furthermore, participants answered questions about feelings of immersion and their level of experience with computer games and music. 5. Results We compared the mean difference between the number of facts remembered correctly from the ‘Music’ and ‘No Music’ conditions regardless of the display system and the order of the stimuli by using a paired t-test because groups of participants listened to the music in different halves of the lesson. We found a significant correlation (r ¼ 0.568) between the ‘Music’ and the ‘No Music’ conditions (p < 0.0005), but no significant difference (p ¼ 0.44) between the mean number of facts remembered correctly from the ‘Music’ and the ‘No Music’ conditions (Table 2). We performed a repeated measures ANOVA by adding stimuli order and display systems as between subjects factors and experiment halves as a within subjects factor to investigate the impacts of these variables on the number of facts remembered correctly. The analysis revealed that the mean number of facts remembered correctly for the second half was significantly higher than the mean number of facts remembered correctly for the first half (p ¼ 0.021), although this had a relatively small effect size where 12% of the total variance is accounted for by the variance in the two halves of the experiment with the observed power being 0.65 (medium). We also found a statistically significant difference (p ¼ 0.029) between the two display systems where on average participants in the 3-monitor display system remembered 3.0 facts more about the history of the Macquarie Lighthouse than participants using the Reality Center (see Table 2) where 10% of the total variance is accounted for by the variance in the display systems with the observed power being 0.60 (medium).

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Table 2 Descriptive statistics along with statistical analysis results for experimental conditions. Experiment Condition

Mean

Std

Effect sizeg

Statistic

P value

No Music Musica First Half Second Halfb Reality Center 3-monitor display systemb Music First No Music Firstb 3-monitor display system - No Music Reality Center – No Musicc 3-monitor display system – Music Reality Center – Musicc

8.08 8.38 7.83 8.62 14.96 17.96 16.50 16.42 9.38 6.79 8.58 8.17

2.97 2.56 2.74 2.75 4.81 4.60 4.57 5.30 2.73 2.65 2.54 2.62

0.11

t47 ¼ 0.779

p ¼ 0.44d

0.29

F(1,44) ¼ 5.78

p ¼ 0.021e

0.64

F(1,44) ¼ 5.10

p ¼ 0.029e

0.02

F(1,44) ¼ 0.004

p ¼ 0.95d

0.96

t46 ¼ 3.32

p ¼ 0.002f

0.16

t46 ¼ 0.56

p ¼ 0.578d

a b c d e f g

Paired t-test for the stimuli with display systems ignored. Repeated measures ANOVA. Independent t-test. Not significant. Significant at p ¼ 0.05. Significant at p ¼ 0.01. Calculated by dividing the difference between the two means by the pooled standard deviation (Cohen’s d).

We found no statistically significant difference (p ¼ 0.95), between the mean number of facts remembered correctly when the order of stimuli (’Music First’ or ’No Music First’) differed. The mean number of facts remembered correctly was 16.50 and 16.42 for Music First and No Music First, respectively (see Table 2). We did, however, find a highly significant interaction between display systems, stimuli order and experiment halves (F(1,44) ¼ 10.82, p ¼ 0.002) where this interaction accounts for 19.7% of the variance with the observed power being 0.89 (high). To be able to identify where the significant differences originated, we investigated further possible interactions, between stimuli (music – no music) and display systems by disregarding the stimuli order. Firstly, the mean number of facts remembered correctly for the ‘No Music’ conditions of both display systems were compared with each other in an independent t-test. We found a highly statistically significant difference between the ‘No Music’ conditions on the two different display systems (p ¼ 0.002), where on average, in the 3-monitor display system participants remembered 2.59 facts (out of 15 questions) more than the participants in the Reality Center (see Table 2). Note that these results refer to only one half (i.e. 15 questions from the ‘No Music’ condition) of the VirSchool history lesson (’Music’ condition ignored) which means that the participants who were using the 3-monitor display system remembered 17.3% more facts correctly than their peers in the ‘No Music’ condition in the Reality Center. We found no significant difference between the mean number of facts remembered correctly for ‘Music’ conditions of both display systems (p ¼ 0.578). The stimuli had different effects on the mean number of facts that participants remembered correctly in the two display systems. The upper graph in Fig. 4 shows the results for the Reality Center and the lower graph shows the results for the 3-monitor display system. On the y-axis, the mean number of facts that participants remembered correctly from the first and the second halves (x-axis) of the VirSchool history lesson are shown for each of the display systems. For each display system the graph also shows which stimulus was presented to participants - ‘Music’ first (solid line) or ‘No Music’ first (dotted line). For the purposes of discussion, the interaction will be explored by examining the results separately for the two display systems. In the second half of the VirSchool history lesson in the Reality Center, participants from SOG 1 on average remembered 6.5 facts (std ¼ 2.20) correctly out of the 15 facts that were presented in the second half of the VirSchool history lesson. Note that in SOG 1 participants listened to ‘Music’ in the first half and ‘No Music’ in the second half, thus, on average participants remembered 6.5 facts from the second half if there was no music influence. On the other hand, if participants listened to ‘Music’ together with the narration of the Avatar in the second half of the VirSchool history lesson (SOG 2), on average they remembered 9.17 facts (std ¼ 2.82) correctly from the second half of the VirSchool history lesson. This means that participants remembered a mean of 2.67 facts more from the facts that were presented in the second half of the VirSchool history lesson when they listened to ‘Music’ in the second half of the VirSchool history lesson in the Reality Center. A t-test revealed that the difference between the order of the stimuli (SOG 1 and SOG 2) is statistically significant (t(44) ¼ 2.72, p ¼ 0.009, where Bonferroni adjusted significance value is 0.0125). Like in the Reality Center, the data of the 3-monitor display system shows a major difference in the mean number of facts remembered correctly from the 15 questions that were asked about the facts from the second half of the VirSchool history lesson depending on whether there was music present in the second half or not. Of the 15 questions from the second half participants on average answered 10.50 questions correctly (std ¼ 1.51) if there was no music playing and 8.33 questions correctly if music was playing (std ¼ 2.84). This means that participants who did not listen to music in the second half on average remembered 2.17 facts more from the second half of the VirSchool history lesson in the 3-monitor display system than participants who listened to ‘Music’. This is the opposite result to the observation for the Reality Center where listening to music in the second half resulted in a significantly higher average number of correctly remembered facts. On average, in the 3-monitor display system the difference in the number of facts remembered correctly from the second half depending on the stimuli (’Music’, ’No Music’) was, after the Bonferroni adjustment, not statistically significant (t(44) ¼ 2.21, p ¼ 0.033, >0.0125). 6. Other findings In addition to investigating the effect of music and different display systems on learning in virtual environments, we were interested in the attitudes of participants toward the virtual learning environment(s). Out of 48 participants, 44 found the virtual environment to be a useful

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Fig. 4. Mean number of facts remembered correctly from the first and second halves of the VirSchool history lesson compared between the Reality Center and the 3-monitor display system with either ‘Music’ first (solid line) or ‘No Music’ first (dotted line).

learning tool. Those participants who felt that the music assisted their learning were more likely to positively answer the question if they thought that the virtual environment was a useful learning tool at statistically significant level (p ¼ 0.001). Moreover, 65% of participants liked the part with background music more, compared to 35% of participants who preferred the part without background music irrespective of whether it was played during the first or second half of the VirSchool history lesson and disregarding the type of display system. Furthermore, we found that on average participants who were native English speakers (n ¼ 18) on average remembered 3.1 more facts (t(46) ¼ 2.202, p ¼ 0.033) than participants who indicated English as their second or other language (n ¼ 30). Moreover, overall and across all conditions, on average, male participants remembered 3.0 more facts (t(46) ¼ 2.16, p ¼ 0.036) from the VirSchool history lesson than female participants. An explanation for this latter finding may be that the majority of female participants (70.4%) were not native English speakers, compared to 50% of males who were not native English speakers. Thus, it may be that the language barrier was the true reason why on average female participants remembered fewer facts than their male counterparts. However, we were unable to add language and gender as between subjects factors in addition to the existing between subjects factors to the repeated measures analysis of variance because there were too few observations in each cell. Thus, further research is needed in this area to provide sound evidence for the reasons for this difference. 7. Discussion The results showed that in the ‘No Music’ condition in the 3-monitor display system, participants remembered more facts than their peers in the same condition in the Reality Center. Although the order of the stimuli (SOG 1 or SOG 2) across display systems was not a significant factor, it was found that on average participants in the Reality Center remembered statistically significantly more facts from the second half than from the first half of the VirSchool history lesson. However, the same analysis was not significant for the 3-monitor display system. Most notably, a highly significant three-way interaction was revealed between the mean number of facts remembered correctly from the two halves of the VirSchool history lesson, the stimuli order and the two display systems. Further analysis showed that participants in the Reality Center remembered more facts correctly on average if they were listening to music in the second half of the VirSchool history lesson as compared to their peers in the same display system who did not listen to music in the second half. This result stands in contrast to the results from the 3-monitor display system in which on average those participants who listened to music in the second half of the VirSchool history lesson remembered less facts correctly than their counterparts who did not listen to music in the same display system. On average, participants remembered statistically significantly more facts if they watched the history lesson using the 3-monitor display system instead of the Reality Center and they remembered more facts from the second half of the VirSchool history lesson in both display systems (although the power of this result was low). One possible explanation for participants performing worse in the Reality Center compared to the 3-monitor display system is that they were overloaded with incoming stimuli in the unfamiliar and visually overwhelming

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display system. A display system that has a wider field of view is accepted to be more immersive than another display system with a narrower field of view (Slater et al., 2002, p. 23). In this study, the Reality Center would therefore be categorized as being more immersive than the 3monitor display system. However, as others have investigated, immersion is related to the feeling of presence (ibid., p. 24) but not necessarily related to improved learning (Moreno & Mayer, 2002; Persky et al., 2009). Moreno and Mayer (2004), for example, report that in their experiments “there was [.] no support for the idea that higher levels of immersion free up cognitive capacity that can be used for active cognitive processing during learning” (Moreno & Mayer, 2004, p. 171). They also argued that the Head Mounted Display used in their experiments (and with a higher immersion level than a standard monitor display system) might have distracted the learners from paying attention to the academic content of their game. Furthermore, Sharples, Cobb, Moody, and Wilson (2008) report that when they used different types of display systems with varying levels of immersion, that “the monitor display had much more acceptance with participants as they [the participants] were familiar with using it in a normal working environment.” (p. 59) Consistent with the findings reported in these studies, we speculate that the unfamiliarity and visual and auditory overload in the highly immersive Reality Center were in fact counterproductive to the learning. Consistent with Moreno & Mayer’s (2004) conclusion regarding the head mounted display, we further speculate that cognitive overload was the reason why participants in the Reality Center performed worse than their peers in the 3-monitor display system. This possible explanation is supported by Sweller (1988), who reports that when the number of items that are to be stored and processed in working (i.e. short-term) memory becomes too large, the result is a cognitive overload which in turn leads to a decrease in the performance of the original task (ibid. p. 275). This theory is consistent with Miller’s (Miller, 1956) finding that our brain can keep between 5 and 9 pieces of information in working memory at the same time. Although Sweller has tested his ‘Cognitive Load Theory’ with a focus on problem solving tasks, the underlying restrictions of the human brain apply to the present study as well. If participants were intimidated or overwhelmed by the unfamiliar display system, their working memory might have been overloaded and not capable of processing as much information from the VirSchool history lesson as participants in the more familiar 3-monitor display system. Sweller comments that this explanation seems plausible but he doubts that there is any literature on it (Sweller, personal communication, 2009). A similar line of argument is provided by Keith (2006) for high drop-out rates of distance students in eLearning. He states that if learners have not yet developed a schema in long-term memory to which new information can be linked, they are easily overwhelmed or overloaded by the new and different learning methods of the eLearning process. This overloading could cause a learner to become highly anxious and lose confidence, and then stop learning (Keith, 2006, p. 78). Similarly, Clarke et al. (2005) reported that teaching students a spreadsheet application while at the same time teaching them mathematics reduced their performance in the mathematics tasks. They recommend that the curriculum area should be learned serially rather than simultaneously. Further evidence for the detrimental effects of cognitive overload comes from the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) research area where some researchers (Hartmann, 2003; Restak, 2004; Rizzo et al., 2000) argue that the root cause of ADHD is the oversupply of information that comes with the plethora of emerging technology. Any sort of distraction reduces efficiency (Restak, 2004, p. 67). In the Reality Center, on average, participants remembered more information from the second half of the VirSchool history lesson when they were presented with background music. Correspondingly, if participants listened to the narrator without background music in the second half of the VirSchool history lesson, on average, they remembered less information from the second half. If the absence of music in the second half made participants remember more facts, then this observation would have been the same in both display systems, however, this was not the case for the 3-monitor display system. If participants heard no music in the second half in the 3-monitor display system, on average, they remembered more facts in the second half. In the Reality Center on the other hand, on average, participants remembered more facts from the second half if they did hear music. Thus, the reason for the better memory of participants could neither be the music nor the absence of music in the second half. The analysis from the first half of both display systems showed that the mean number of facts remembered was not significantly different whether participants listened to music or not. In fact, the mean number of facts remembered was almost identical in the first half of the VirSchool history lesson for both display systems. One explanation for the discrepancy of the mean number of facts remembered from the second half between display systems could be that the facts in the second half were easier to remember, however, we did not observe this effect equally for both display systems. Another possible explanation could be a carry-over effect in which the stimulus presented to participants in the first half of the experiment affected their performance in the second half. This carry-over effect, however, would have to be the same in the two display systems as well, which it was not. Thus, the differing results of ‘Music’ and ‘No Music’ in the second half of the different display systems remains unclear, yet a possible explanation is given below. For the differing results between the ‘Music’ and ‘No Music’ conditions in the second half of the two display systems there might be an explanation that has less to do with cognitive load but instead could be explained with the level of comfort of participants which might be higher in the smaller arrangement of the 3-monitor display system. It may be possible that in our experiment participants in the Reality Center were unfamiliar with the highly immersive display system and therefore felt overwhelmed, subsequently less comfortable and in consequence their performance for learning was reduced. Reduced performance due to less familiarity is supported in a study where surgeons who were allowed to bring their own (familiar) music performed significantly better in a backward counting task than those who listened to unfamiliar investigator-selected music (Allen & Blascovich, 1994). This is supported by Schellenberg (in press) who found that students perform better in a computer game when they listened to their preferred music or when they listened to their choice of either a music condition or a story condition. So familiarity and choice were decisive factors for improved performance in these studies. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that after observing 96 participants in the Reality Center (72 from Experiment 1 and 24 from Experiment 2), the principal author of this article instantly observed a change in how participants approached the task as soon as the first participant used the 3-monitor display system instead of the Reality Center. Participants seemed to be much more comfortable and relaxed when using the 3-monitor display system as compared to the physically and technically overwhelming Reality Center. Thus, when participants approached the task on the comparably familiar 3-monitor display system and there was music present in the first half of the VirSchool history lesson, this music could have been interpreted by participants as being normal in a video game environment,4 similar to film music, which is almost expected in contemporary movies. In this more familiar environment music might in fact have a similar effect as

4 From a researchers perspective it is a virtual environment but to a member of the general public the VirSchool history lesson would look like a video game, especially since it uses video game technology to create the virtual environment.

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the K448 Sonata used in the experiments of Rauscher et al. (1993) where those participants who listened to 10 min of Mozart before the experiment scored 8–9 points higher in a subsequent spatial ability IQ test. Also, when we recall the findings from Allen and Blascovich (1994) they report that surgeons regularly use music to block out distractions when operating. Thus, in a familiar environment the music might in fact help people to disconnect from the outside world and help them to concentrate on the task at hand. Our results provide some support that familiarity and level of comfort affected participants performance as participants who had already experienced the first half of the study in the Reality Center did perform significantly better when music was played in the second half. However, this does not help in explaining why participants in the already familiar desktop environment did worse if music was played in the second half. It should be explicitly noted that this explanation has not been confirmed in the present study and very little support was found in the literature of adjacent research areas (Allen et al., 1994; Rauscher et al., 1993; Sharples et al., 2008) which warrants future investigations.

8. Conclusion and future outlook Our results show that background music played in the second half of the VirSchool history lesson in the Reality Center resulted in a statistically significantly higher number of facts that were remembered by participants as compared to the number of facts remembered correctly from the first half. The opposite effect was observed in the 3-monitor display system where participants remembered less information from the second half of the VirSchool history lesson if background music was played. Furthermore, overall, the memory for facts from the VirSchool history lesson was significantly better in the less immersive 3-monitor display system, which is rather unexpected and indicates a demand for further investigations. While the results from this study show that in some circumstances music has a significant influence on memory in a virtual environment and in others it does not, these findings are not conclusive in themselves. Instead, they contribute towards and encourage further investigation of our understanding of the role that music plays in virtual learning environments. In order to further our knowledge of learning in such environments, follow-up studies could include the use of different musical styles, tempos and timbres and could further evaluate whether soothing, ambient music or a breathing/meditation exercise before a history lesson supports memory for facts from this history lesson. Participants could be assigned to either 10 min of music listening, 10 min of breathing exercise or no preparation time before watching the history lesson. Thus, it could be investigated if a general relaxation exercise of 10 min prior to experiments has the capacity to return participants from performing in multitasking mode (everyday life) to single tasking mode (learning situations) in which they concentrate on one topic.

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