A psychologist wants to know if classical music enhances memory. Subjects are assigned to two groups and instructed to study a list of 20 words. One group listens to a Bach sonata and the other group hears popular music. In this simple experiment the independent variable is:

Question

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The independent variable is the variable that the researcher manipulates or changes in order to observe the effect on the dependent variable. In this experiment, the researcher is manipulating the type of music that the subjects listen to (classical or popular) in order to observe the effect on memory recall. Therefore, the independent variable is music type (C). The word list (A), subsequent recall on a memory test (B), and the amount of time each group studied (D) are not the independent variable, as they are not being manipulated by the researcher.

A Psychologist Wants to Know If Classical Music Enhances Memory