Background music in educational films : the effect of background music induced arousal on the memory and the evaluation of information presented in educational films

The aim of this study was to investigate which effect the structural feature background music has on memory and evaluation of educational films that were presented to children of grades 7 and 8 of primary schools. The most important findings of this study concerns the role of arousal. The results indicate that background music with varying arousal levels influences the extent to which information presented in educational films is memorized. It was found that the viewers’ memory was increased after watching educational films that contained background music with medium arousal levels compared to educational films without background music (control condition), or films containing background music with low or high levels of arousal.