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

  • Authors:

  • Eric Fassbender;Deborah Richards;Ayse Bilgin;William Forde Thompson;Wolfgang Heiden

  • Affiliations:

  • 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;Statistics Department, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia;Psychology Department, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia;Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Sankt Augustin, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Computers & Education
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

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.