Proceedings of the 11th Convention of the
European Acoustics Association
Forum Acusticum / EuroNoise 2025


Málaga, Spain
June 23 - 26, 2025





Session: A14.01 Psychoacoustics - General
Date: Monday 23 June 2025
Time: 13:20
Title: Does Audibility Mediate The Effects Of Binaural Beats On Working Memory And Mental Workload?
Author(s): Kirsten van den Bosch
Carl Schmidt von Wolkahof
Tassos Sarampalis
Pages: 3345-3348
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.61782/fa.2025.0309
PDF: https://dael.euracoustics.org/confs/fa2025/data/articles/000309.pdf
Conference proceedings
Abstract

Studies on the cognitive and psychological benefits of binaural beats (BB) often yield divergent or inconclusive results. While some studies suggest that BB are beneficial for e.g. relaxation, creativity and concentration, others fail to replicate these findings. Recent reviews on the subject reveal this may be explained by dissimilarities in methodologies and incomplete reporting thereof. Some important variables for binaural beat research are not always sufficiently reported, such as carrier frequencies, masking types, or stimulus levels. Information on the volume of the BB versus potential background audio is especially lacking in many instances. To create a better understanding of the possible benefits of listening to BB on cognitive functioning, we propose a study in which we assess different signal-to-noise ratios of BB in noise. Specifically, we aim to measure the effects of listening to 40 Hz BB in noise on working memory performance, operationalized through an N-back task. This way, we can assess to what extent BB need to be audible to reach potential beneficial psychological effects.