Research Findings Report Does speeding up the Music Tempo increase Task Performance

Running head: Research Findings Report Customer Inserts His/her NameAdvertising We will write a custom report sample on Research Findings Report: Does speeding up the Music Tempo increase Task Performance specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name 10th June 2011 Outline Abstract Introduction Method Participants Materials and Measures Procedure Description of the Experimental music Completing the Mazes Questionnaires Results Discussion Limitations of the Study Abstract Findings from previous research have established that various features of music have profound effects on human behavior particularly the mood and endurance in exercise and sports domains. This research aims at determining how music tempo affects human performance in specific tasks. To examine this concept, the current study, involved 28 participants grouped into two categories, the experimental group with 15 participants and the control group with 13 participants, who were required to complete three mazes before filling out questionnaires. The experimental group listened to fast music while the control group only listened to low tempo music. The results showed that the control group, on average, completed the mazes at a significantly lesser time than the experimental group. This indicates a correlation between the effects of music upon the subjects’ lives and task performance. These findings have potential implications for labor force in enhancing labor productivity and sports psychology and training. Understanding how the tempo of music affects the speed of performing a task is not only helpful in keeping work schedules but also increasing physical productivity.Advertising Looking for report on psychology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Introduction The effect of music upon human behavior has aroused much interest in psychology. Most of previous researches centered on aspects of human behavior such as mood, emotional responses, and personal preferences. Edworthy and Warring (2006), established that faster music elicits happier responses and can influence the mood (p. 597). In contrast, slower music or lyrics produce unhappier emotional responses. Music, therefore, elicits emotional responses, which in turn influence the human perception of speed. These emotional responses perhaps relate to people’s perception of time and speed. Webster and Weird established that people who listen to faster music, have much happier moods, thought they talked faster and conversation subjects progressed much faster than people who listened to slower music (2005, p. 196 ). Since listening to music alters the mental states that influence human activity, various structural aspects of music can also alter the physical speed. The effect of music on athlete’s performance offers important insights on the influence of music on speed and endurance. Most athletes listen to music during workouts and prior to competitions as a motivational tool that makes them work harder. Music tends to distract one’s attention from the present task, which makes the individual less focused on the physical activity (Crust, Clough, 2006, p. 191). Diverting attention to music leaves no room to focus on tension or pain produced by the exercise. Consequently, the perception about the exertion or complexity of the task is lower. This increases the people’s endurance as well as efforts in performing tasks. Music, therefore, increases endurance making people to work harder though subconsciously. The high efforts expended, when people are listening to music, speeds up the completion of the specific task. However, much of the previous studies do not show how different music tempos influence speed of a physical or mental activity. This research uses a combination of slow and fast tempo music w to i nvestigate people’s speed when performing specific tasks. The purpose of this study is to examine how the different music tempos affect the levels of human activity with other factors such as habits held constant. This research will test the following hypotheses: Firstly, music with fast tempo will lead to fast completion of the mazes. From the literature review, fast music elicits happier emotional responses, which improves the speed of task performance. Secondly, the research will test the alternative hypothesis that a faster tempo will make a participant stressed out, perform the task poorly, and as a result, take longer to complete the task.Advertising We will write a custom report sample on Research Findings Report: Does speeding up the Music Tempo increase Task Performance specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Method Participants This study involved 28 male and female college students. The participants were grouped into t wo categories; experimental and control groups. The grouping was random, that is, there was no specific criterion used to place the participants into either of the group. The research involved manipulating the tempo of music using a classical piano piece called Chopin’s love with the experimental group listening to high tempo music as they completed three mazes. The control group listened to the piece of music only at the original tempo. Materials and Measures This study involved 28 participants divided into two groups. There was a provision of sheets of paper to each of them upon sitting down. The papers contained instructions on how to complete the three mazes. The instructions demanded that the participants had to inform the timekeeper before starting and after completing a maze. The participants were required to complete three mazes while listening to music of varied tempo. They recorded their respective times of completing each maze. After the exercise, the participants were required to complete a questionnaire to provide information regarding their experience during the exercise. Procedure Description of Experimental Music: The music selection used involved a classical piano piece known as Chopin’s love as composed by Nakamura Yuriko. The control group listened to the piece of music at the original tempo, BPM of 108.42 according to mix Meister BPM analyzer. For the experimental group, researcher increased the tempo of the same piece of music to 185 BPM using a Garage Band program. The two groups listened to the piece of music at a constant volume from an apple Mac laptop through large headphones covering their entire ears. Completing the mazes: Once the seated, the 28 participants had to read a sheet of paper containing instructions about the exercise. The research then grouped them into two categories: the control group (n=13), who only listened to the piece of music at the original tempo and the experimental group (n=15), who listened to the music at a higher tempo at 185 BPM.Advertising Looking for report on psychology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The two groups were to put onto the headphones and once the music begins playing, count five seconds aloud. The two groups listened to the music through headphones. Once the music started playing, the participants counted loudly for five seconds before informing the timekeeper to start timing. After finishing each maze, the participants were required to shout â€Å"STOP† and again count five seconds before proceeding to complete the next maze. The procedure required the participants to repeat these instructions until they completed the three mazes. Questionnaire: After completing the mazes, participants were then asked to fill out a Questionnaire with questions about the role of music in their lives, their experience during the maze completing exercise, their familiarity with the music played and whether they have any hearing impairments. This aimed at determining whether the impact music had on the participant’s lives correlated with the effect the piece of music had on the participant’s speed in completing the maze. The researcher recorded all the respective data. Results The analysis of the results focused on the hypothesis that fast tempo music elicits positive emotional responses that would make the participant to complete the maze faster. Table below records the mean of the participant’s maze completion time (in seconds) and the standard deviation (SD) for the two groups (the experimental and control groups); Mean = Summation of the time taken to fill the mazes/Sample size Standard deviation=√∑ (each value-mean)2/Sample size Maze Completion time (seconds) Mean (M) Standard Deviation (SD) Fast Tempo (Experimental group) 52.1703 13.57 Low Tempo (Control group) 55.50 18.86 Table 1: Means for control and Experimental groups The preliminary results indicated that the questionnaire items had less effect on the speed at which either group completed the maze. The table 1 shows the means and the standard deviatio ns for each treatment. The results conformed to the hypothesis that high tempo music the participants making them to complete the mazes faster than their counterparts subjected to low tempo music do. On average, the participants in the experimental group completed the mazes 3.34seconds faster compared to the participants in the control group. Because the participants in the experimental group completed the mazes much faster compared to participants in the control group, the results were consistent with the first hypothesis. To understand the results of maze completion, the research sought to find out if there is any correlation between the questionnaire items and the speed of completing the mazes. Overall, no participant reported having any hearing impairment, six participants never listened to music while working, and five rarely listened to music, 12 sometimes, five usually with no participant always listening to music when working. These results indicated that the participantâ₠¬â„¢s previous music life or habit had no significant effects on the participant’s speed of completing the mazes. Discussion The major purpose of this study was to find out whether the music tempo has an effect on the speed of task performance. Previous research had established that music elicits emotional responses. These emotional responses then influence the perception of speed, which makes people to perceive that an action progresses faster when subjected to fast tempo music (Edworthy, Warring, 2006, p. 604). In addition, previous research has shown that music influences the efforts that people put into a task, particularly sporting activities (Crust, Clough, 2006, p.194). Based on this evidence, the present study hypothesized that the high music tempo would make people complete involving tasks such as maze completion much faster than in conditions of low tempo music., the results obtained were consistent with the hypothesis but supported the alternative hypothesis that high music tempo makes people perform involving tasks at a much faster rate. The experimental group, on average, completed the maze at a faster rate compared to the control group under conditions of low tempo music. From these results, it is justifiable to conclude that fast tempo music stimulates physical and mental activity when performing specific tasks, which increases the speed of performing the task. This research also aimed at identifying the specific characteristics that predict the extent that the effects of music tempo had on people. However, the items, which included the music life of the participants, hearing impairments and the music genre that participants frequently listened to, did not correlate with the speed of completing the maze. This indicates the inapplicability of these items in prediction of the speed of completing performing tasks. Although the items tested in the questionnaire had less overall impact on the participant’s speed, the lack of hearing i mpairment among the subjects suggests clearly that speed correlated with music tempo. This design of this study aimed to explore the relationship between music tempo and cognitive speed. Usually, when many factors are involved, it is difficult to find results without any external influences. However, this research overcame these obstacles by using a common activity (maze completion) and a piece of music popular among the participants. The intention of the questionnaires items was for better interpretation of the results obtained from the two groups. The findings of this research that high tempo music has a distractive effect, allow for further investigation into the role music plays in enhancing human performance in competitive situations such as athletics or sports. Further research is essential to find out why and how music tempo influences human performance. Limitations of the Study One limitation of this study was that few participants participated in the research, which made it difficult to collect a large amount of data for each treatment. Another limitation of this study was that the participants could not have known the purpose of this study and consequently provided wrongful information when filling out the questionnaires. Future research should explore the effect of both music synchrony and lyrics on the speed of human performance, particularly in physical activities. References Crust, L., Clough, P. (2006). The influence of rhythm and personality in the endurance Response to motivational asynchronous music. Journal of Sports Sciences, 24, 191-196. Edworthy, J., Warring, H. (2006). The effects of music tempo and loudness level on Treadmill exercise. Ergonomics, 49, 597-604. This report on Research Findings Report: Does speeding up the Music Tempo increase Task Performance was written and submitted by user Brylee Franklin to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Problem of Slaves and The Article Notes on Virginia Written by Thomas Jefferson essays

Problem of Slaves and The Article Notes on Virginia Written by Thomas Jefferson essays In this article, Jefferson discusses the problems that the institution of slavery created in Virginia and how it affected the slaves. The notes were written while Jefferson was the Governor of Virginia and were based on an inquiry made by the French legation in Philadelphia and discussed several different aspects of life in Virginia. The article explains the reasons why Jefferson believes that freeing blacks would be detrimental to the state. Jefferson begins by explaining that it would be difficult to incorporate the slaves into the state because of the racism that the institution of slavery had caused. Jefferson argues that "Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations, the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably never end but in the extermination of one or the other race." (Jefferson 182) Jefferson also asserts that the Black race is inferior to the white race on many different levels. He explains that this inferiority would make it difficult for the slaves to function in society. The notions of black inferiority abound throughout the article and the Governor asserts that blacks are inferior intellectually and in the arts, lack physical attractiveness and lack the ability to reason. Jefferson attempts to parallel Roman slaves with American slaves and concludes that the inferiority that he saw in black was not a result of their condition, but instead a result of nature. Because of this perceived "inferiority", Jefferson believes that abolishing slavery would be difficult asserting that the "unfortunate difference of color, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these pe...

Reflection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 11

Reflection - Essay Example Filing of the case as homicide is arguably inapt. I have specifically used the term ‘arguably’ because, the prima facie of the case is evident towards the assumption of homicide. The entire scenario would have turned upside down had Popeye died in the fight. A supportive argument can this way be placed. Bluto did not die in the fighting with his rival, Popeye. In fact, Popeye was about to swoon and staggered in the fight. The physical might of Bluto was really overpowering Popeye making him virtually inert to fight further. At this juncture, it is quite unimaginable to think of the death of the aggressor in the place of victim. Thus the cause of death of Bluto had to be reinvestigated who was effectually vigorous during the entire scene of fight and up to the time of his death. Assault was the crime committed by Olive on Bluto. Assault generally is a crime of violence involving the intent to cause physical injury that result in physical injury. In New York, assault without any weapon is a misdemeanor and that with the use of a weapon is felony. As such Olive’s act of criminality can be restricted to felony. Here the article 35.15 of New York may be read. The article clearly goes this way: â€Å"A person may, subject to the provisions of subdivision two, use physical force upon another person when and to the extent he reasonably believes such to be necessary to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by such other person, unless: (a) the latter’s conduct was provoked by the actor himself with intent to cause physical injury to another person.†. Here, although the provoking of Olive to the Bluto’s aggressive conduct is seemingly apparent, the term à ¢â‚¬Ëœwith intent’ attracts the explanation of motive, which may not be legally required obligatory to defend the accused. Evidently, the motive of Olive was only to stop the

REWARDS AND BENEFITS IN VOLVO CAR COMPANY - HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Essay

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Terrorism in Pakistan Essay Example for Free

Terrorism in Pakistan Essay When analyzing the worlds current situation concerning terrorism, it is difficult to say whether the global war on terrorism has been a successful one. Since the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Centers in New York City, George Bush, former president of the United States, vowed to defeat terrorism. Eight years later, this promise has yet to be fulfilled, and even with the help of many countries globally, the threat of terrorism is still evident more then ever, which questions whether the global war on terror is succeeding. Moreover, to entirely grasp the subject, one must be familiar with the definition of terrorism and it can be defined as an act of violence or threatened violence intended to spread panic in a society, and to bring about political change. Terrorists do not necessarily live in their native states, they also migrate to neighboring countries, and countries abroad and often go undetected. 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On March 20, 2003, a day after President Bushes address, The United States and the United Kingdom began their invasion of Iraq. Although the invasion was intended to disarm Iraq from any weapons of mass destruction, it was also aimed at uncovering and eliminating any terrorist organizations within the country since several United States officials accused Hussein of harboring and supporting al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks. In fact, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found and it was discovered that there was â€Å"no direct connection between Saddams Iraq and al-Qaeda.† Furthermore, while there was no concrete connection between Iraq and terrorism, the United  States and the United Kingdom decided to remain in Iraq and liberate its people. Moreover, attacks on troops were being carried out daily and Iraqis say that these attacks were being made by â€Å"organized forces motivated by nationalism, Islam and revenge that feed off public unhappiness.† Instead of creating a more liberal and safe Iraq, what the United States and United Kingdom had done was essentially bring more violence and terrorist activity to the country. Prior to the United States and United Kingdoms occupation, the people of Iraq were not able to speak their minds, but what they did have was security and the basic amenities to get through the day. After the occupation had taken place, the Iraqi people to this day â€Å"fear being attacked in their bedrooms; power, water, and telephones are routinely unavailable.† Shiites, which are a branch of Islam, supported the removing of Saddam Hussein from power, but got increasingly hostile towards the United States and United Kingdoms occupation of their country. This hostility resulted in the creation of religious extremists within Iraq which â€Å"have told western reporters that they are prepared to carry out martyrdom operations if and when they receive orders to do so.† The United States and United Kingdom invasion of Iraq had not only increased religious extremism in the country, but it was also used as a â€Å"recruitment tool by al-Qaeda and other groups.† The head of Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, Saad al-Faqih, said that â€Å"images of American soldiers and tanks in Baghdad are deeply humiliating to Muslims.† This humiliation is one of man y things that tends to trigger deep anger for American and British forces occupying Iraq, and ultimately creates terrorists. However, some argue that the occupation of Iraq was essential in the global fight against terrorism. Former President George W. Bush stated that if the United States and the United Kingdom had not invaded Iraq, terrorists would not be idle. 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Restaurant Review Essay -- essays research papers

Restaurant Review   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It was rainy, crowded and loud at the entrance, the smell of cigarette and rum filled the air of the lobby area. It was Saturday night at the T.G.I.F in San Francisco, the Giant’s were playing so the place was packed and fans were being loud. The restaurant is located on a corner nearby Pier 39 and it almost has an Aspen look to it. The building itself is made of bricks with big colorful windows and huge cherry finished wooden doors with brass handles. Inside, the walls are cherry wood and covered with big mirrors and stuffed dear heads. The tables and chairs are all dark wood with a very rich red color. The atmosphere inside almost had an Irish pub feel to it, people were very happy and socializing loud, laughter filled the air. Men argued about whose team was better, young people laughing at jokes and friends, there were televisions tuned to sports.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The staff there were all clean cut and very down to earth but yet nice and helpful. Although we were a party of 15 and the place was packed, the wait was only 15 minutes. They sat us down and we had a waitress with us promptly to take our drink order. There cuisine is more along the line of good old fashioned Americana food. Fried foods, ribs, barbeque and burgers. They have a small variety of salads and soups but it had something for everyone, whether in a diet or not. There prices are reasonable for the amount and quality ...

Dirt Bikes

Selected Financial Data We have provided a spreadsheet with three worksheets containing Dirt Bikes financial data for you to review [see Dirt Bikes Financial Data. xls]: Income statement and summary balance sheet data from 2007-2009 Annual sales of each Dirt Bikes model between 2005 and 2009 Total domestic vs. international motorcycle sales between 2005 and 2009 The income statement and balance sheet are the primary financial statements used by management to determine how well a firm is performing.The income statement, also called an operating statement or profit and loss statement, shows the income and expenses of a firm over a period of time, such as a year, a quarter, or a month. The gross profit represents the difference between the firm’s revenue (or sales) and the cost of goods sold. The gross margin is calculated by dividing gross profit by revenues (or sales). Net profit (or loss) is calculated by subtracting all other expenses, including operating expenses and income taxes from gross profit.Operating expenses are all business costs (such as expenditures for sales and marketing, general and administrative expenditures, and depreciation) other than those included in the cost of goods sold. Net margins are calculated by dividing net profit (or loss) by revenues (or sales). A balance sheet provides a snapshot of a company’s financial assets and liabilities on a given date, usually the close of an accounting period. It lists what material and intangible assets the business owns and what money the business owes either to its creditors (liabilities) or to its owners (shareholders’ equity, also known as net worth).We have included here are only the most important pieces of balance sheet data for you to review. At any given time a business’s assets equals the sum of its liabilities plus its net worth. Current assets include cash, securities, accounts receivable, or other investments that are likely to be converted into cash within on e year. Current liabilities are debts that are due within one year. Long-term debt consists of liabilities that are not due until after a year or more.If too much debt has been used to finance the firm’s operations, problems may arise in meeting future interest payments and repaying outstanding loans. By examining a series of financial statements one can identify and analyze trends in the financial strength of a business. When examining Dirt Bikes’ income statement and balance sheet data, pay special attention to the company’s three-year trends in revenue (sales), costs of goods sold, gross margins, operating expenses, and net income (or loss). Pay attention to whether the company’s short and long-term liabilities are growing and whether they exceed assets.If a company has more current assets than current liabilities, it is a sign that it probably has enough working capital to fund investments in new equipment or information systems. The two other spreads heets present motorcycle shipment data between 2005 and 2009, which can be used to gauge motorcycle sales. When examining these spreadsheets, pay attention to the trends in sales. This includes the sales trends for each product Dirt Bikes sells, overall sales trends, and the proportion of international to domestic sales.