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.

中文翻译：

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双耳和单耳节拍刺激对不同情绪水平受试者认知功能的影响

今天，双耳和单耳节拍通过互联网或由心理健康机构提供，以改善幸福感或认知功能。这种改进是通过假设大脑将其脑波频率调整到听觉节拍的频率来解释的。本研究调查了双耳和单耳节拍刺激对高情绪和低情绪参与者的注意力和工作记忆的影响。一组 24 名参与者（16 名女性，8 名男性），年龄介于 19 至 31 岁（M = 22.33，SD = 3.42），在听白噪声 (WN) 的同时执行 Flanker 任务来测量注意力和 Klingberg 任务来测量工作记忆, 40 Hz 伽马双耳节拍 (BB) 和 40 Hz 伽马单耳节拍 (MB)。在 BB 和 MB 条件下，Flanker 注意力任务的所有三个难度级别的表现速度都比 WN 下更快。在 BB 和 MB 条件之间没有发现差异。在 WN、MB 和 BB 条件下，Flanker 注意力任务和 Klingberg 工作记忆任务的表现质量没有显着差异。最后，由于情绪低或高的参与者在任何条件下对 BB 和 MB 的反应都没有不同，因此 BB 和 MB 的影响在高情绪和低情绪的参与者中似乎相似。本研究支持更快的注意力处理可能同样归因于 BB 和 MB 的影响的观点。建议进一步研究以更深入地了解 BB 和 MB 刺激持续时间、频率范围、