EFFECTS OF MUSIC AND WHITE-NOISE ON WORKING-MEMORY PERFORMANCE IN MONKEYS

IT has been suggested that Mozart's music may have beneficial effects on the performance of cognitive tasks in humans. In the present study the effects of Mozart's piano music, white noise, simple rhythm and si lence were studied on the performance of a delayed response (DR) task in monkeys. The acoustic treatments were given for 15 min, either befo re or during DR testing. The acoustic treatments did not affect DR per formance when given before testing. However, Mozart's piano music play ed during DR testing caused a significant deterioration in the perform ance of the monkeys, whereas white noise improved it. It is suggested that Mozart's music serves as distractive stimulation during DR perfor mance thus affecting working-memory-related neuronal processing and pe rformance. White background noise, on the other hand, may improve DR p erformance by protecting against environmental distraction during test ing.