ArticlePsychological research2019
Binaural auditory beats affect long-term memory.
Article in Psychological research, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Potential of binaural beats intervention for improving memory and attention: insights from meta-analysis and systematic review.Psychological research · 2023Pooled it
- Efficacy of binaural auditory beats in cognition, anxiety, and pain perception: a meta-analysis.Psychological research · 2019Pooled it
- Effectiveness of brainwave entrainment on pre-operative fear and anxiety in pediatric dental patients: a randomized controlled trial.European archives of paediatric dentistry : official journal of the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry · 2024Trial
- Multisensory flicker modulates widespread brain networks and reduces interictal epileptiform discharges.Nature communications · 2024Trial
- Effects of the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Binaural Beat Brain Stimulation and Short-Term Training on Simultaneously Assessed Visuospatial and Verbal Working Memories, Signal Detection Measures, Response Times, and Intrasubject Response Time Variabilities: A Within-Subject Randomized Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial.BioMed research international · 2022Trial
- Effect of Inaudible Binaural Beats Stimulation Timing and Task Performance Level on Visuospatial Working Memory.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Research progress on 40 Hz sensory stimulation for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Review
- Impact of binaural beat stimulation on working memory: a graph theory network approach.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Sensory stimulation enhances visual working memory capacity.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Effects of inaudible Binaural beats on visuospatial memory performance and hemodynamic responses.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Sonification of electronic dynamical systems: Spectral characteristics and sound evaluation using EEG features.Cognitive neurodynamics · 2024Article
- Effects of daily listening to 6 Hz binaural beats over one month: an event-related potentials study.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Can Binaural Beat Music Be Useful as a Method to Reduce Dental Patients' Anxiety?International dental journal · 2024Article
- The Effect of Rhythmic Audio-Visual Stimulation on Inhibitory Control: An ERP Study.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Effectiveness of Preoperative Alpha Wave Entrainment in Pediatric Dental Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Cureus · 2024Article
- Short-Term Effect of Auditory Stimulation on Neural Activities: A Scoping Review of Longitudinal Electroencephalography and Magnetoencephalography Studies.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Prospects of cognitive-motor entrainment: an interdisciplinary review.Frontiers in cognition · 2024Review
- Beta and gamma binaural beats enhance auditory sentence comprehension.Psychological research · 2023Article
- Reverse effect of home-use binaural beats brain stimulation.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Modulation of rhythmic visual stimulation on left-right attentional asymmetry.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The presentation of two pure tones to each ear separately with a slight difference in their frequency results in the perception of a single tone that fluctuates in amplitude at a frequency that equals the difference of interaural frequencies. This perceptual phenomenon is known as binaural auditory beats, and it is thought to entrain electrocortical activity and enhance cognition functions such as attention and memory. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of binaural auditory beats on long-term memory. Participants (n = 32) were kept blind to the goal of the study and performed both the free recall and recognition tasks after being exposed to binaural auditory beats, either in the beta (20 Hz) or theta (5 Hz) frequency bands and white noise as a control condition. Exposure to beta-frequency binaural beats yielded a greater proportion of correctly recalled words and a higher sensitivity index d' in recognition tasks, while theta-frequency binaural-beat presentation lessened the number of correctly remembered words and the sensitivity index. On the other hand, we could not find differences in the conditional probability for recall given recognition between beta and theta frequencies and white noise, suggesting that the observed changes in recognition were due to the recollection component. These findings indicate that the presentation of binaural auditory beats can affect long-term memory both positively and negatively, depending on the frequency used.
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