Discussion

When doing this experiment the results that I have found, is those who listens to Classical and R&B both had an average of 0.61%. Those who listened to Metal got an average of 0.51%. Those who listened to Country music, had on an average of 0.44%. From this average result, it shows that my result, does agree with the hypothesis that were stated, which was:

“Music with a heavy beat decrease the rate of your concentration, while music with a mellower beat will allow your mind to relax, allowing you to concentrate more”

The amount of concentration is measured by creating 5 different set of word list for each round, so each person would have to memorise under the given condition. (E.g while listening to music and without music). Four adolescents at different ages participated in the experiment in order to broaden the experiment. Each individuals have 5 rounds: No music, Classical, Metal, RnB and Country. The tested indivduals were to memorise the words without music and without music. This allows us to analyse the different scores with music. By comparing the scores of each individuals.

In conclusion, the purpose of conduction this experiment was to see which music would help you concentrate better. I state the mellower music would help you brain relax more, allowing you to memorise more words. By this I believe that I have proven that mellower music does help you concentrate more then music with a heavier beat.

Result

	No Music	Classical	Metal	Rnb	Country
Courtney	41.00%	41.00%	41.00%	50.00%	25.00%
Michelle	79.00%	95.00%	75.00%	83.00%	66.00%
Billy	37.00%	41.00%	45.00%	50.00%	45.00%
Adrian	50.00%	66.00%	41.00%	62.00%	41.00%
Total	2.07%	2.34%	2.02%	2.45%	1.77%
Average	0.52%	0.61%	0.51%	0.61%	0.44%

Experiment_update

Today I managed to gather 4 people to do my assignment. But I had to complete my experiment through Skype as all of them couldn't come over to my house, due to my parents not able to be home in time.

I have decided to change my experiment around again.Instead of having 2 list - one with music; one without music. I have decided that each of the 5 genres should have a specific word lists:

• Without music
• Classical
• Metal
• RnB
• Country

 The people participating in the experiment would then have a 2min limit to memories these lists before having 1 min to write down as much words possible from that list.

Word List #1 and #2

This is officially my chosen word list for Round 1: The Memory Test WITHOUT Music

This is my list of words for the Round 2 of the experiment: The Memory Test WITH Music.

             

                                 

Experiment_Draft

   

   

Aim:
      To investigate how music can
      affect the concentration of the
      teenage brain

Hypothesis:
   That music with a heavy beat
   decreases the rate of your
   concentration while music with a mellower beat will allow your mind to relax, allowing you to concentrate more.

Variables:
The controlled variables are for my experiments are:

• The time to memorise the words
• The time to write down the words
• The amount of people
• The amount of words on the list

The Independent Variables are for my experiments are:

• Different musical genre
• 5 sets of list (for each genre), with words on them

The Depended Variables for my experiments are:

• The number of words a tested individual can remember

Apparatus

• Timer
• 4 Different genres of music  (Classical, Metal (rock), R&B, Country)
• 4 sets of lists of words (round 1 without music)
• 4 sets of lists of words ( round 2,3,4,5 with music)

• 4 Pencils
• 4 Papers
• 4 Headphones

Safety

•  If the volume of the music is louder than normal, it might cause some damage too the ear, so i must ensure that the volume of the music is comfortable enough to hear for the individual.

Method

1. Gather 4 people and isolate them from one another.
2. Give each person the same list of words, and headphones 
3. Allow them to have 2 minutes to memorise those words without music
4. When the time is up, collect the list of words
5. Give them a pen and a blank of piece of paper that is folded in half. 
6. Give them one minutes to write down the words that they have memorised on a blank paper.
7. Then allocate each person a specific genre to listen to.
8. Give them the list of words for the specific genre.
9. Repeat step 3, while listening to their allocated genre.
10. Repeat step 4.
11. Turn the music off and give them 1 minute to write down the words that they have memorised.

Improving the Aim!!

Today while doing my blog, my sister helped me to think of how i could improve my aim a little bit more, but it would still have the same concept.

           BEFORE (I changed my aim):  Which genre of music will help you concentrate better. 

NOW: (This the aim for the experiment:)" Today, most teenagers owns mp3 player or Ipods, which they used to listen to music. I decided to research this topic to investigate how music can affect the concentration of the human brain in teenagers"

Variables

I have decided to do variables for my experiments today

Independent Variables:

• Different music
• 2 set of lists

Depended Variables 

• The words that are remembered

Controlled Variable

• The time to memorise the words
• The time to write down the words
• The amount of people
• The amount of words on the list

Control

• Doing the experiment without music

Up-date

I was able to post again as i was able to get my progress mark!!!

                  




             

Brain Research

The brain contains nerve cells, known as Neurons, which makes up the organ so-called "gray matter". The neurons transit and gather electorchemical signal that are communicated through millions of nerve fibers called dendrites and axon, also known as the brain's "white matter". In between the spaces of these membranes, are filled with fluid that cushion the brain and keeps it from being damaged by coming in contacted with the inside of the skull.

The brain is made out of 3 main parts:

• The forebrain, which consist of the  cerebrum, thalamus and hypothalamous ( parts of the limbic system
• The midbrain, which consist of the tectum and tegmentum
• The hindbrain, which is made of the cerebellum, pons and medulla

The Cerebrum

Also known as the cortex, it is the largest part of the human and is associated with the higher brain function, such as the thought and action. The Cerebral Cortex, is  highly wrinkled, which makes the brain more efficient, because it can increase the surface area of the brain and the amount of neurons within it. The Cerebrum has two halves or hemispheres, which are then future divided into 4 regions, called "Lobes" in each hemisphere. 

Frontal Lobe -  located behind the forehead, which are associated with reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions and problem solving.

Parietal Lobe - located behind the frontal lobe, which are associated with touch, temperature and pain

Occipital Lobe - located at the rear of the brain, which are associated with visual processing

Temporal Lobe -  located near the temples, which are associated with hearing and memory

Brain Stem

      Are made up of midbrain, pons, and medulla. Together they are located at the organ's base, controlling the reflexes, regulates when you fell sleepy or awake, and also the crucial basic life functions, such as:

           --> Heart Rate

           --> Breathing

           --> Blood Pressure

General Ideas

Today i ask a teacher about my experiment on how i can improve it. I explained to sir what my experiment is about and wat I am planing to do, which is to gather 6 people and test them on memory, by giving them a list of words and tell them to memorise those words for 2 min with out music first. Then giving them an allocated music doing the same procedure but with similar word list.

Sir then said that instead of having 6 different genre of music have around 4 genre of music, which we decided would be classical, Jazz, Metal and RnB. Then get 2-3 people to listen to the same music, while doing the same memory test.

He stated that this way it would be fairer to do the experiment having a variety of result.

Changing experiments

 Today  i have decided to change my assignment a little bit, so that the experiment would sound more interesting.

My new experiment has to do with the memory and the genre of music. My idea is similar to my old experiment, which are:

1. Ask 6 people to participate in my experiment
2. Give them all a piece of paper with a list of words and they will have around 2 min to memorise the word with out music.
3. When the time is up they will have 1 min to write as much word as they can remember
4. Each person will then be given one type of genre to listen to
5. They then will receive the same list or a different one having 2 mins to remember the words
6. Then with they will repeat the same process as in step3

Ear_Research

 Today I decided to do some research about the ears, and how sound waves travel in the ear. These are the following:

The ear is one of the most important sensual organ that picks up sound waves from our surrounding area. This then turns those waves of bouncing air molecules signals into electrical nerve signals. 

There are 3 main sections of the ear:

The Outer Ear: are the outer frame of the ear, which collects simple sound waves. The shape helps to funnel the sounds to the ear drum causing it to vibrate.

The Middle Ear: on the other side of the ear drums. this is the part where sound energy is converted into mechanical energy, which are helps by 3 bones, which are named after there shape:   à The Hammer

             à The Anvil

             à The Stirrup

The Inner Ear, also known as the cochlea. It is a fluid- filled spiral about the shape of a pea. It has around 20,000 tiny sensitive hairs waving around inside the cochlear fluid. Each of these hairs is a nerve that picks up specific information about the vibration, converting it into electrical impulses before sending signals to the brain. This will allow the brain to interprets the impulses to what we know as sounds.

Informations are found in the following websites:

Catherine Schmidt-Jones.2010. Sound and Ear. http://cnx.org/content/m12365/latest/

[accessed 8/2/11]

Unknown. 2008.Sound and Ear. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_sound_waves_travel_through_the_ear

[accessed 8/2/11]

re-type

Yesterday i accidentally deleted my frist post that wrote on this blog.
It said:

      Wednesday 2nd February

                 Today was the first day that I made this blog. Today i received my science assignment, which was a SRP, by Mr Wong. During that lesson he also allowed us to go gather up some idea. we visited http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/, and from this website it gave me some general idea on what to do, which was some thing to do with music. 

This was the first post that i posted.

Draft Experiment

 Today i have decided to do idea #3, which is which music would help you concentrate better. But i have decided to change the heading a bit and call it

    "Which genre of music would help you concentrate better"

From this, i have also decided to brainstorm my idea for my experiment. which are:

    1. Ask 6 people to help with the experiment

    2. Give them all the same kind of puzzle and time them without the music playing from start to finish

    3. Give them three sets of music music, while doing the puzzle and time them from start till finish

      e.g   Person 1 = rock music while doing puzzle 

              Person 2 = Rap music while doing the puzzle

I believe that this experiment wont take as long as it would and it would fit in the time frame given, but still havent figured out a name for my experiment yet!!

Brainstorm

Today i decided to brainstorm my ideas as Mr Wong has given us a handout sheet of some ideas (which i have posted last time). I have selected some ideas and have evaluated them:

My Ideas and Evaluation

    Idea #1       "Gas ovens are more efficient than electronic ovens"


Evaluation  
Pros :   This would be a good experiment to do, as it can tell you
whether gas or electronic ovens are economically efficient and also which oven are good for the environment.

Cons : This experiment would create much of a hassle for my
parents to help me out and supervise me incase something
do go wrong. The equipment that I would need, is to buy the gas oven that
would I would need to consider the types of equipment needed to measure
the amount of energy used in order to measure which ovens are more efficient


     Idea #2      "Would parent/children have the same fingerprint"
Evaluation
Pros : It would interesting to investigate as it allow me to have a better understanding on fingerprints.
          It would also be interesting to see whether parent and child have the same fingerprints as they also    
         share the same genetic makeup. The experimental process itself would be quick and results 
         can be recorded on the spot.

Cons:  Even though this experiment is simple and would take less time, it is way too simple and
           wouldn't suit the time- frame that was given to me


     Idea #3      " Which music would help you concentrate more"
Evaluation
Pros: This experiment would be interesting, because most teenagers today would
         study while listening to music. The beauty of this experiment is that because i wanted to base my
         experiment along the line of music, it would also have a quick experimental process.

Cons: This experiment would be quick as it will be a 1 day to do this
          experiment. Secondly, the effects of music on the brain can affect different person

Student Research Project