THE IMPACT OF RHYTHM UPON VERBAL MEMORY

Suzanne L. Medina, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Graduate Education

California State University, Dominguez Hills

March 1, 1994
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I Introduction

From the steady beats of the human heart to the cadence of a musical piece, rhythm
pervades every aspect of our lives. Rhythm plays a particularly significant role in the functioning
of the human organism including the psychomotor, affective and cognitive domains. It is the
rhythmic nature of our physiological processes which drives our movements, hearts beats, and
other regularly occurring physiological functions. Apart from the psychomotor functions,
rhythm also impacts the affective aspects of our lives. In a musical context, for example, music
affects the human emotions such that a slow beat is calming and a fast one agitating to the human
organism. Finally, rhythm partakes of a significant role in our cognitive functions although little
has been written on the topic. Most of the existing empirical data on rhythm contribute to our
understanding of memory for rhythm; however there is little which helps us comprehend the
impact which has upon verbal memory.

Although an increasing amount of research is emerging in the area of psychology of

music, that is, the segment of psychology which deals with the psychological processes involved
in the perception of music and its various sub-components, little literature can be found which
concentrates exclusively on the interaction of rhythm and the memorization of verbal
information.

The existing, though sparse, data on this topic will be reviewed in this paper. More
specifically, this review of the literature will explore the topic of rhythm as an aid or a mediator
for verbal learning and in the process attempt to answer to main questions on the topic:
(1) Are short-term and long-term memory similarly or differentially impacted by rhythm ?, and
(2) What kinds of verbal items are positively and negatively affected by rhythm, those
which are related in meaning to other items being memorized, or those which are not related
semantically ?

Defining Rhythm

Prior to actually reviewing the literature on the topic, it is important to define what is
meant by the word, rhythm. A review of the literature clearly points to the absence of any
generally agreed upon definition of rhythm. Although there are a number of definitions, they
vary depending upon the discipline from which they originated. Nevertheless, these definitions
generally fall into one of the following categories (Behrens, 1984):

* Definitions involving units of time

* Definitions involving time and space

* Definitions involving movement in time

* Definitions involving the organization of music

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* Definitions involving a subjective organization

* Definitions involving a match or a motor response to an external source

* Definitions involving a determination of difference

* Definitions involving movement quality

The definitions involving units of time best characterize rhythm as it is used in this paper.
According to Spohn (1977), rhythm consists of "regular units of time or pulses " (p.62), or as
Mikol (1954) states it, rhythm is "regular, equally spaced pulsations equivalent to the musicians
term 'tempo' or 'meter' " (p.240).

According to Smoll (1973), rhythme is " the periodic succession or regular recurrence of
events in time which constitute the organization of temporal relationships" (p. 232). Yet,
probably the most fitting definition/explanation is the one offered by Martin (1972): "Inherent in
the rhythmic concept is that the perception of early events in a sequence generates expectancies
concerning later events in real time" (p. 503).

Other Terminology Used to Refer to Rhythm

A number of other terms have been used in the literature apart from rhythm (Neisser,
1967): temporal grouping (Ryan 1969A, Ryan 1969B), and intonation grouping (Glazner, 1976).
Underlying these differing terminologies are also divergent ways of approaching the topic of
rhythm. As Glazner (1976) points out, psychologists studying rhythm focus upon juncture (i.e.,
spacing between items), while linguists study juncture, pitch, and stress as they occur in natural
speech. Despite these apparent differences in orientation, this paper will focus upon
commonalities, that is, the temporal aspects of rhythm.

Memorization of Rhythm and Memorization with Rhythm

This particular treatment of rhythm and memory should not be confused with other areas
with which there is some overlap. Particular care was taken to entitle the paper "The Impact of
Rhythm Upon Verbal Memory" so as to distinguish it from studies which focus upon auditory
perception and memory for various aspects of rhythm such as accent (Sturges and Martin, 1974)
and duration (Payne, Devenport, Domangue & Soroka, 1980). In this review of the literature,
however, attention is given not to the memorization of rhythm, but memorization with the benefit
of rhythm. Rhythm is secondary to verbal memory; it is an aid to encoding information into
memory (Evans and Clynes, 1986) or what Staples (1968) refers to as an Iso-rhythmic mediator.
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Rhythm in Non-Musical Contexts

Given the previously-mentioned definitions of rhythm, it would seem logical to include

studies of rhythm in musical contexts. After all, when songs are memorized verbal information
is being memorized with the benefit of rhythm. Music has been reported in the literature to aid
verbal memory (Gingold, 1985). However, when verbal information is presented in the context
of a song, both rhythmic and tonal elements interplay and it is difficult to distinguish the effects
of musical pitch and rhythm. Thus, in order to concentrate on the variable of rhythm, this
review will not include research which has dealt with rhythm in a musical context. The intent of
this paper is to study rhythm alone, without other extraneous variables such as musical tonality.

Heterogeneity of Studies

Although the definition of rhythm is narrow and the topic of this paper is focused upon
rhythm and verbal learning, the studies contained in this review, though few in number, exhibit a
certain degree of heterogeneity. More specifically, they are varied in terms of the subjects,
contexts, and type of verbal information memorized. The data in this paper has been generated
from studying the impact of rhythm upon the verbal memories of handicapped subjects as well as
normal subjects, and children as well as adults. In some of the studies, rhythm occurs naturally
with verbal information as it does in the simple sentence, while in other contexts it is artificially
imposed. Probably the area of greatest diversity has to do with the type of verbal information
memorized. Studies included in this paper report findings on the memorization of digits,
consonants, words , word groups and sentences. In short, although the number of studies
included in this paper are few in number, there is great diversity in these three areas.

Distinctions Made in this Paper

Prior to the review of literature, it is important for the reader to comprehend several
distinctions which were made in order to bring continuity and comprehensibility to this literature
review. The first distinction has to do with the nature of the material to be memorized, while the
second distinction deals exclusively with the memorization task itself.

First, the term semantically unrelated will be used in this paper to refer to studies
involving stimuli to be memorized which are semantically independent of one another. These
include lists of digits (e.g., 3,7,2) lists of words (e.g., cat, sky, pen) unstructured sentences (e.g.,
Dog of under) nonsense syllables (e.g., blif) and consonant lists (e.g., b,p,g).

Semantically related will be used here to refer to verbal information consisting of stimuli
which are semantically linked to one another. Thus paired associates involving coordinate pairs
(e.g., pot and pan) or subordinate-superordinate pairs (e.g., couch-furniture) are semantically
related as are lists of words which comprise a meaningful sentence (e.g., The dog bit the man).
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Recall of Form / Recall of Meaning

Within each of these lies another distinction which is important to this literature review:
The type of recall required of the subject. Verbal information can be recalled from memory on
the basis of its form or its meaning. A semantically related item such as a meaningful sentence
(e.g. Mr. Jones departed from his home at 8 P.M.) can be memorized for its form (e.g.,"Mr.
Jones departed from his home at 8 P.M.") or its meaning (e.g., "A man by the name of Jones left
his house at approximately 8 o'clock." Similarly, subjects memorizing semantically unrelated
items (e.g., dog, table) could be asked to recall their form (e.g., dog-money) or their meaning
(e.g., animal with four legs, furniture), however, it is usually the case that unrelated items are
memorized for their form only.In short, these distinction will allow the general tendencies to be
more clearly delineated in the literature review.

II Rhythm and the Memorization of

Semantically Unrelated Verbal Information

In the following section the studies reviewed will consist of those studies in which
rhythm impacts the short-term and long-term memorization of semantically unrelated verbal
material. Clearly more research has been done in the area of short-term memory.

Short-Term Memory

Staples (1968) studied the effects of rhythm upon short term memorization of mildly and
moderately retarded children. The fifteen subjects, consisting of twelve boys and one girl, were
required to memorize nine nonsense syllables which were paired with basic vocabulary words.
Subjects were randomly placed in one of three groups depending upon the types of mediators
used: (1) iso-rhythmic mediators, which utilized rhythm but no melody, (2) melodic mediators,
which relied upon melody and rhythm and (3) no mediation, which consisted of an oral
presentation free of any mediation. Subjects were tested immediately after each of their five
learning trends. Although 45 correct responses were possible for each student, the mean for any
of the three conditions never exceeded 14. In fact, the experimental group learning with the
aid of the iso-rhythmic mediation had the highest mean (i.e., 14.0) followed by the melodic
mediation group mean of 8.86. The control group, which did not rely on any form of mediation,
had a mean of 3.6. Using a Mann-Whitney U Test, the scores belonging to the iso-rhythmic
group and control groups were compared. The difference between these scores was statistically
significant at the .05 level. Thus, when compared to a no-rhythm situation, rhythm was a more
effective mediator and means of enhancing short-term memory. Clearly, rhythm succeeded at
facilitating short-term memory of semantically unrelated items in a group of mentally retarded
subjects.
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Ryan (1969A) also addressed the issue of rhythm (i.e., temporal grouping) and its impact
upon short term memory, however, his subjects consisted of 50 Cambridge University students.
Subjects, who were placed into one of 5 conditions, were instructed to memorize nine-digit
sequences taken from a random number table. Subjects in the rhythmic temporal group were
presented digits in groups of threes with 0.9 second time intervals between digit groups.
Subjects in the remaining four non-temporal groups were presented the same nine-digit
sequences without pauses between groups. In one condition, the digits were not grouped. In the
remaining three conditions, grouping of a different nature took place. In one, pips were heard
after the third digit, in a second, students were instructed to group the digits into threes, and in
the third, subjects heard pips and were instructed to do their own grouping. Students were tested
on their recall of these digits immediately after presentation.

After error scores were computed, Ryan performed a Kruskal-Walls one-way analysis of
variance across conditions which was significant a the 0.02 level. This was followed by a
Mann-Whitney U test which was also significant at the 0.0002 level (U=6) for the temporally
grouped and ungrouped conditions. That is, when comparing the two, temporal grouping resulted
in significantly fewer recall errors than the ungrouped condition which presented digits without
the benefit of rhythmic grouping of any kind.

When the temporal grouping error scores were compared with the pips-only group, there
was also statistical significance (U = 13, p< 0.002). In the pip condition, grouping did occur
because of the pips. While both the pips group and the temporal group did provide subjects with
a means of grouping digits, the temporal group relied upon rhythm while the pip group did not.
The statistical significance mentioned points to the superiority of the rhythmic condition when
compared to another form of grouping. In short, rhythm facilitated recall of digits when
compared to conditions in which there was (1) no rhythm and therefore no digit grouping and (2)
no rhythm, but grouping thru pips.

Taking a more linguistic approach to the issue of rhythm in short-term memory, Weener
(1971) studied the impact of sentence rhythm (i.e., intonation) upon the memorization of short
word lists. Ninety child subjects of normal intelligence participated in this study. Subjects, who
were enrolled in kindergarten, first, second and third grades, were instructed to recall five-word
strings which were syntactically acceptable but either (1) intoned or not intoned during
presentation, and (2) had associativity (i.e., were semantically related) or lacked associativity
(i.e., semantically unrelated). After performing a 4 X 2 X 2 Fixed Factor Analysis, it was
determined that intonation was a significant main effect (F = 58.7, p< .01). In short,

Weener found that intonation facilitated short-term recall of semantically unrelated items.
Although rhythm also positively impacted the recall of semantically relevant items as well, this
will be discussed in greater detail later in this paper.

Shepard and Ascher (1972), also taking a more linguistic approach, studied the effects of
rhythm (i.e., intonation) upon short-term memory as well. Unlike some of the previously
mentioned studies, their subjects covered a wide range of ages: first graders, fifth graders and
college students. All ninety-six subjects, 16 of each gender, were instructed to recall five-item
word strings which were either (1) meaningful, that is syntactically and semantically accurate;
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(2) anomalous, that is, syntactically but not semantically acceptable; and (3) unstructured, both
semantically and syntactically incorrect. Half of the subjects were presented the stimuli with the
benefit of sentence rhythm, while the other half received a monotone presentation. Subjects
were required to recall the lists immediately after each trial. The intonation effect between list
type (i.e., meaningful, anomalous and unstructured) and intonation (i.e., intonation/no intonation)
was significant at the .001 level. Sentence rhythm did in fact facilitate the learning of all three
lists in the short term memory task. Clearly, rhythm aided short-term memory of the
semantically unrelated items as was the case with the unstructured lists of this study. Findings
with respect to the anomalous and meaningful lists will be discussed later in this paper under
section III entitled, "Rhythm and the Memorization of Semantically Related Verbal
Information."

Long-Term Memory

Only the study by Milman (1974) deals with the issue of rhythm and its impact upon
long-term memorization of semantically unrelated items. By using a metronome, Milman
facilitated the memorization of multiplication tables in a group of slow learners. Students recited
their times tables rhythmically to the sound of the metronome, often tapping the table with their
hands in syncopation. After a while, the recitation usually began to resemble a chant. Lessons
covering one multiplication table generally lasted 25 minutes. The subjects in her study
consisted of only two subjects, each of which were experiencing little success using conventional
instructional methods. Pre and post tests consisted of forms A and B of the Metropolitan
Achievement Test (Elementary Arithmetic-Computational Section). Grade-level scores
belonging to the two subjects rose from 4.9 at the end of the fourth grade to 7.1 at the end of the
fifth grade, and 4.9 at the end of the fifth grade to 8.1 at the end of the sixth grade. Milman
reports that in this last case, other mathematical skills, apart from computational skills,
improved: More abstract mathematical skills improved as well, as evidenced by higher scores on
the Concepts and Problem Solving section of the test. Thus, rhythm, in this case artificially
imposed, positively affected the memorization of semantically unrelated items in long-term
memory.

III Rhythm and the Memorization of Semantically Related Verbal Information

While the previous section drew attention to rhythm and its participation in the
memorization of semantically unrelated items, the following section focuses on the
memorization of semantically related items, that is, on the interaction between rhythm and
meaning. This section will explore whether rhythm facilitates the learning of semantically
related stimuli as much as it does the learning of semantically unrelated stimuli.
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Short-Term Memory

In Weener's (1971) study of 90 elementary school children, sentence rhythm (i.e.,

intonation) increased the recall of semantically related strings as well as the semantically
unrelated word groups. Although rhythm was beneficial to both types of word groups, recall was
greatest for semantically related items than their unrelated counterparts. When both intoned
conditions were compared, an average of 1.3 more words were recalled when there were
meaningful relationships between items. So then, although rhythm benefits short-term memory
of semantically related and semantically unrelated stimuli, the effect is greater in the former than
it is in the later.

The findings of Weener (1971) are consistent with the findings of Shepard and Ascher
(1972). In their study involving 92 subjects, there was a significant interaction (p< .001)
between rhythm (i.e., intonation) and list type. As was reported earlier in this paper, rhythm
enhanced memory for semantically unrelated items (e.g., unstructured lists). This interaction
effect held true as well for short-term memorization of the more semantically related anomalous
and meaningful lists, however there was one major difference: the degree to which rhythm
facilitated
learning. The lists which were semantically related were favored over lists with little semantic
relatedness to other items in the list. No statistical data were reported to support these findings.

Furthermore, the meaningful lists , which carried the greatest amount of meaning were
recalled better than the anomalous lists, whose items were not as semantically related. Thus, the
greater the semantic relatedness, the greater the recall with rhythm. It is understandable why
anomalous sentences were retained better than unstructured ones, yet to a lesser extent than
meaningful sentences. Although anomalous sentences such as "The eloquent eraser sprinkles
freedom." maintains semantically unacceptable relationships between words (i.e., Erasers cannot
sprinkle.), the items in the sentence are semantically related, so much so that they are capable of
conjuring up mental images.

Glazner (1976), in another experiment of the aforementioned study, studied rhythm and
the short-term memorization of semantically related items in a group of 60 college students.
Subjects were divided into one of two groups: those who were presented the words rhythmically
and those who were presented the words in a monotone voice. Glazner presented 18 lists of 24
nouns for his subjects to memorize. Each list contained four pairs of semantically related words
(i.e., subordinate-superordinate or coordinate word pairs). Two of these semantically related
word pairs were presented in-phase, that is, within the same intonational groups or were
out-of-phase, that is, displaced into two different intonational or rhythmic groups. Filter words,
which were semantically unrelated to other items in the list, made up the remainder of the lists
and separated the semantically related words from one another. Students were tested by writing
all words recalled after presentation.
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In contrast to the research in this section, Glazner's findings indicated that there was no
positive interaction between rhythm (i.e., intonation) and semantic relatedness for short-term
memory. To further examine this relationship, Glazner compared the conditions in which
intonation was in-phase (i.e., synchronized) with the semantic relationships with the conditions
in which intonation was out of phase with semantic relationships. Given the mean proportion of
in-phase words was .51 and out-of-phase words as .48, no statistical significance (p< 1.0) was
found. These findings stand in stark contrast to the findings found thus far from other studies
examining the relationship between semantic relatedness and rhythm in short-term memory.

Long-Term Memory

In another experiment belonging to the same study, Glazner turned his attention to the
impact of rhythm (i.e., intonational groups) and semantically meaningful material upon
long-term, rather than short-term memory. Although the subjects consisted of a different group
of 30 college students, the methods and procedures used in the previously mentioned experiment
were the same.

Findings from this experiment indicated that early list items, those attributed to long-term
memory, were statistically analyzed. There were in this study, two differing ways in which
Glazner determined whether rhythm (i.e., intonational grouping) interacted with semantic
relationships to bring about beneficial effects in long-term memory. First, he compared intoned
semantically related words (i.e., those in-phase) to intoned unsemantically related (i.e., filter)
words. When the mean proportions of correct words were compared for both of these conditions
using an Analysis of Variance, there was significance. That is, more intoned semantically related
words were recalled than intoned semantically unrelated words. The possibility of this occurring
by chance was 10 -9. The second way in which Glazner determined if there was a positive
interaction between semantic relatedness and rhythm was to compare the recall scores of intoned
semantically related words with intoned but out-of-phase words, that is, words whose semantic
relationship had been uninterrupted by intonational boundaries. Once again, the results were
significant (F = 12.07) at the .005 level. So then, after using two different procedures to answer
Glazner's question, it was determined that for long-term memory, there was a strong interaction
between rhythm and semantic relatedness.

IV Summary of Research Findings

The following table, Table 1, was constructed to provide the reader with a simple
overview of the studies covered in this review of the literature. The studies have been placed in
the table by type of memorization (i.e., short-term / long-term), nature of the verbal material
learned (i.e., semantically related / semantically unrelated stimuli), as well as the type of recall
required (i.e., form / meaning). Furthermore, the words yes and no alongside the experimenter's
name signify whether rhythm significantly improved recall of the targeted verbal information.
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As Table 1 indicates, the majority of researchers studied the short-term effects of rhythm
upon the memorization of semantically unrelated items. Yet, Table 1 also indicates that little
work has been done with respect to rhythm and semantically related items. Furthermore, as is
obvious from studying the table, most of the study findings concurred with the exception of the
studies on short-term memory of semantically related items. Given there are only three studies
on the subject, it is unclear why their findings are contradictory.

Table 1

Synopsis of Rhythm and Verbal Memory Research

Semantically Unrelated Items

Ryan (1969A) - Yes

Short-Term Shepard & Ascher (1972) - Yes
Memorization Staples (1968) - Yes
Weener (1971) - Yes

Long-Term Milman (1979) - Yes

Memorization

Semantically Related Items

Meaning Recalled

Short-Term Form Recalled Weener (1971) - Yes

Memorization Shepard & Ascher (1972) - Yes
Glazner (1976) - No

Meaning Recalled
Long-Term
Memorization Form Recalled Glazner (1976) - Yes
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The studies reviewed in this paper included research from two fields: linguistics and
psychology. Although their orientations differed somewhat, they both centered their attention on
the temporal aspects of rhythm. The actual verbal material memorized consisted primarily of
words, yet in one study digits were memorized with rhythm. Subjects were normal and retarded
and varied greatly in their ages from four years of age to college-age. Despite these differences
there were some general tendencies which are noteworthy. These research findings are
summarized as follows:

* Rhythm facilitated short-term memorization of semantically unrelated stimuli in the

four studies cited.

* Rhythm facilitated long-term memorization of semantically related stimuli.

* There is disagreement regarding the effectiveness of rhythm upon the short-term

memorization of semantically related stimuli.

Based on this literature review, it is possible to tentatively address the two questions
which were central to this review of the literature:

(1) Are short-term and long-term memory similarly or differentially impacted by

rhythm ?

(2) What kinds of verbal items are positively and negatively affected by rhythm, those
which are related in meaning to other items being memorized, or those which are not
related semantically ?

With regard to the first question, the existing research indicates that both long-term and
short-term memorization of semantically unrelated stimuli are positively affected by rhythm.
There is some disagreement as to whether the semantically related stimuli are impacted in
short-term and long-term memories. Glazner (1976) points to the differential effects of rhythm
upon semantically related stimuli: While rhythm facilitated long-term memory, it failed to have
the same effect upon short-term memory. The studies by Weener (1971) and Shepard & Ascher
(1972), however, while focusing only upon short-term memory do provide data which is in
conflict with Glazner's: Rhythm does enhance the short-term memorization of semantically
related items.

The second question posits whether rhythm interacts differently with semantically related
and unrelated stimuli. The findings of Weener (1971) and Shepard & Ascher (1972) concur: In
short-term memory, rhythm positively affects recall to a greater extent when stimuli are
semantically related. Furthermore, in long-term memory, rhythm significantly impacts
meaningful verbal information to a greater degree than semantically unrelated items (Glazner,
1976).
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Although most of the research findings are in agreement, caution should be taken not to
draw definitive conclusions based on these studies alone. As Table demonstrates, there are
certain areas in which the research is almost non-existent, particularly the research on long-term
memory and semantically related items. Greater numbers of research studies are needed overall
in order to properly address the questions posed at the beginning of this paper. Only then will it
be possible to explore further the topic of rhythm and its impact upon verbal memorization.
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References

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Martin, J., (1972) Rhythmic (hierarchical) versus serial structure in speech and other behavior.
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Mikol, B., (1954). The effects of music and rhythm on the performance of a psychomotor task.
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