The Effect of Binaural Beats on Working Memory Capacity

Kraus, Jakub; Porubanová, Michaela

doi:10.21909/sp.2015.02.689

Cited by 35 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…To avoid these kinds of confounding effects and to be able to draw conclusions about the pure nature of the effects of MBs and BBs, the beats in the current study were not accompanied by music. Positive significant results were found in studies using carrier tones with a frequency of respectively 230 and 220.45 Hz, and 240 and 255 Hz (Beauchene et al, 2016;Kraus & Porubanová, 2015). The carrier tones used in the present study were as high as 440 and 480 Hz, and although the BB with a carrier tone around 440 Hz has been shown to be perceived the best (Oster, 1973), these tones might be too high for comfortable listening.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 42%

“…Other authors, who did find a significant improvement in performance while listening to BBs, presented ABS for a relatively long duration (30 min on three different days, Lane et al, 1998). However, a long stimulation period (20 min, three times a week for three weeks) has been found not to yield significant results (Kennel et al, 2010), while listening to BBs for only 12 min improved cognitive performance (Kraus & Porubanová, 2015). Thus, it seems that the duration of ABS might not be the key factor to improve performance, and other, still unknown factors should be examined.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Results showed that immediate recall memory was significantly decreased in the experimental condition compared to the control condition, which suggests a negative effect of BB on memory. In contrast, participants undergoing a 12-minute BB stimulation of 9.55 Hz achieved a significant increase in the capacity of their working memory (Kraus & Porubanová, 2015) and a series of 5 Hz BBs twice a day for 15 days resulted in improvement of immediate word recall (Ortiz et al, 2008). Another controlled study showed that listening to 15 Hz BBs increased response accuracy on a visual-spatial working memory task, while the three control conditions and 5 Hz and 10 Hz BBs all decreased accuracy (Beauchene, Abaid, Moran, Diana, & Leonessa, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effects of Binaural and Monoaural Beat Stimulation on Cognitive Functioning in Subjects with Different Levels of Emotionality

Engelbregt

Meijburg

Schulten

et al. 2019

ACP

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Today, binaural and monaural beats are offered over the Internet or by mental health institutes to improve wellbeing or cognitive functioning. This improvement is explained by the assumption that the brain adapts its brainwave frequency to the frequency of the auditory beat. The present study examined the effects of binaural and monaural beat stimulation on attention and working memory in high and low emotional participants. A group of 24 participants (16 females, 8 males) between 19 and 31 years old (M = 22.33, SD = 3.42) performed a Flanker task to measure attention and a Klingberg task to measure working memory while listening to white noise (WN), 40 Hz gamma binaural beat (BB) and 40 Hz gamma monaural beat (MB). Speed of performance on all three levels of difficulty of the Flanker attention task was faster under the BB and MB condition than under WN. No differences were found between BB and MB conditions. With respect to the quality of performance on the Flanker attention task and the Klingberg working memory task no significant differences under the WN, MB, and BB condition were found. Finally, as participants with low or high emotionality did not respond differently to BB and MB under any of the conditions, effects of BB and MB seem similar in high and low emotional participants. The present study supports the notion that faster attention processing may equally be attributed to the influence of BB and MB. Further research is recommended to gain more insight in the role of factors such as duration of stimulation of BB and MB, frequency range, most appropriate carrier tones, and the role of personality traits.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 42%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Effects of Binaural and Monoaural Beat Stimulation on Cognitive Functioning in Subjects with Different Levels of Emotionality

Engelbregt

Meijburg

Schulten

et al. 2019

ACP

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show abstract

“…Kennel et al [11] investigated whether binaural beat entrainment could reduce symptoms of ADHD in children and found that whilst the symptoms did not significantly improve, homework problems due to inattention improved during the 3 week study. A more recent study on working memory found that exposure to binaural beats had a positive effect on participants exposed to a frequency in the alpha range of brain activity, showing significant improvement in working memory compared with the control group [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Inter-hemispheric and Spectral Power Analyses of Binaural Beat Effects on the Brain

Lefournour

Palaniappan

McLoughlin

2016

Matters

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“…Entrainment of gamma oscillations is of specific interest because of the role of gamma oscillations for attention 21 , feature binding 22,23 , memory 24 , and learning 25 . Beneficial effects of BB stimulation have been reported for memory [26][27][28][29] , attention 30 , creativity 31 , anxiety control 32 , modulation of mood states 27,33 , and pain perception 34 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

40-Hz Binaural beats enhance training to mitigate the attentional blink

Roß

Lopez

2020

Sci Rep

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This study investigated whether binaural beat stimulation could accelerate the training outcome in an attentional blink (AB) task. The AB refers to the lapse in detecting a target T2 in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) after the identification of a preceding target T1. Binaural beats (BB) are assumed to entrain neural oscillations and support cognitive function. Participants were assigned into two groups and presented with BB sounds while performing the AB task on three subsequent days in a cross-over design. Group A was presented with 40-Hz BB during the first day and 16 Hz during the second day, while the order of beat frequencies was reversed in Group B. No sound was presented on the third day. MEG recordings confirmed a strong entrainment of gamma oscillations during 40-Hz BB stimulation and smaller gamma entrainment with 16-Hz BB. The rhythm of the visual stimulation elicited 10-Hz oscillations in occipital MEG sensors which were of similar magnitude for both BB frequencies. The AB performance did not increase within a session. However, participants improved between sessions, with overall improvement equal in both groups. Group A improved more after the first day than the second day. In contrast, group B gained more from the 40 Hz stimulation on the second day than from 16-Hz stimulation on the first day. Taken together, 40-Hz BB stimulation during training accelerates the training outcome. The improvement becomes evident not immediately, but after consolidation during sleep. Therefore, auditory beats stimulation is a promising method of non-invasive brain stimulation for enhancing training and learning which is well-suited to rehabilitation training. Perceptual and motor skills can improve to a certain degree through training. However, successful training requires time and effort. Notably, the outcome of rehabilitation training could benefit from new methods for improving the efficacy of learning. One proposed method to accelerate learning employs non-invasive brain stimulation, paired with a training task 1. The current study used the attentional blink paradigm to investigate whether auditory stimulation with binaural beats during the training improves the performance in detecting a target within a rapidly presented sequence of visual stimuli. Non-invasive brain stimulation using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to improve learning and training outcomes 2,3. However, the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. It has been suggested that the electric or magnetic stimulation modulates the neural membrane potential 4 and causes inhibitory or excitatory effects depending on stimulus parameters 5. Also, the stimulation may increase synaptic efficacy through stimulus-induced long-term potentiation 6 and thus facilitates neural plasticity underlying learning. A recent approach to non-invasive brain stimulation employs the concept that rhythmic magnetic or electric stimulation could entrain neural oscillations in a specific freq...

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The Effect of Binaural Beats on Working Memory Capacity

Cited by 35 publications

References 32 publications

The Effects of Binaural and Monoaural Beat Stimulation on Cognitive Functioning in Subjects with Different Levels of Emotionality

The Effects of Binaural and Monoaural Beat Stimulation on Cognitive Functioning in Subjects with Different Levels of Emotionality

Inter-hemispheric and Spectral Power Analyses of Binaural Beat Effects on the Brain

40-Hz Binaural beats enhance training to mitigate the attentional blink

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