Effects of Audiovisual Stimulation on Working Memory Recall

Abstract

High levels of stress have been shown to negatively impact working memory recall. For many students these levels produced by academic demands could actually hurt test performance (Kuhlmann et al., 2005). To decrease test anxiety many students distract themselves via television or social media. We hypothesized that the physiological response induced by a startling video will negatively affect memory recall in a way that mimics a direct stressor, thus fewer words will be recalled during the experimental condition. Physiological activity was measured in subjects both before a startling video as well as after during memory recall by measuring electrodermal activity, respiration rate and pulse. Subjects were asked to memorize and then orally recall words. Experimental results were not significant (p < 0.05) and failed to reject the null hypothesis that there would not be correlation between the physiological response induced and memory recall performance. Students showed similar physiological responses between the control and experimental testing and also had similar recall performance.