Bibliogr. s. 27-28

The aim of the research was to examine how different versions of the same musical composition affect the recall of earlier memorised verbal material. One hundred sixty one high school students were divided into four groups. In three of the groups the recall phase was preceded by an instrumental, Polish and English version of the same musical composition respectively. The fourth group was the control group, where recall was preceded by silence. In the first phase of the experiment the subjects memorized a list of words in English. In the second phase they either listened to music or remained in silence. In the third phase the subjects were recalling remembered words. At the end all the subjects filled in a questionnaire, concerning among other the evaluation of the experimental procedure and their learning style preferences (with or without music). The obtained results showed significant differences in recall between the instrumental and English, English and Polish and also instrumental and control groups respectively. It has been found that vocal music in English version decreased the amount of the recalled material while the instrumental music increased it. The interpretation of the results was based on the Mozart Effect (improvements of cognitive task results due to the effect of music) and retroactive inhibition (the worsening of the results due to the interpolated variable).