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The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013)

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Re: The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013)

#31

Post by jackaroe78 »

swimfar wrote: post #14
manicdee wrote: post #8

As a music listener I will point out the obvious flaw in the study: the “choice” of music was from pop genres. I find music with distinguishable lyrics in a language I understand to be distracting while music with no lyrics, or lyrics indistinguishable from noise (cf Rammstein, Björk, Enya) are far less distracting. I use music to mask open office noise including customer support personnel on phone calls, ops people…

I agree regarding music without lyrics. But I never thought of including incomprehensible lyrics in that group. Below is a selection of playlists that I listen to often while working. There are occasional lyrics or talking, but not too often. I also like that the music style has a bit of variation in it. http://musicforprogramming.net/

These mixes are brilliant! Boards of Canada get in that same type of headspace

https://youtu.be/ksWPFwHwlwY

Re: The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013)

#32

Post by hkjayakumar »

wildrhythms wrote: post #3

tl;dr: "participants performed better in silence than they did in any music conditions" Personally, I cannot listen to music and work... I get too caught up in trying to follow the music. I end up just wearing my noise canceling headphones with no music playing and working in relative silence. That said, I'm interested to know if folks here on HN can relate.

I can relate to this. Music only serves as a distraction and prevents me from getting actual work done.

I also only tend to listen to music occasionally, when I 'feel' like it.

Re: The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013)

#34

Post by themarkn »

swimfar wrote: post #14
manicdee wrote: post #8

As a music listener I will point out the obvious flaw in the study: the “choice” of music was from pop genres. I find music with distinguishable lyrics in a language I understand to be distracting while music with no lyrics, or lyrics indistinguishable from noise (cf Rammstein, Björk, Enya) are far less distracting. I use music to mask open office noise including customer support personnel on phone calls, ops people…

I agree regarding music without lyrics. But I never thought of including incomprehensible lyrics in that group. Below is a selection of playlists that I listen to often while working. There are occasional lyrics or talking, but not too often. I also like that the music style has a bit of variation in it. http://musicforprogramming.net/

I listen to this when working sometimes too, especially if I'm struggling to focus because of other distractions.

Re: The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013)

#35

Post by saas_co_de »

manicdee wrote: post #8

As a music listener I will point out the obvious flaw in the study: the “choice” of music was from pop genres. I find music with distinguishable lyrics in a language I understand to be distracting while music with no lyrics, or lyrics indistinguishable from noise (cf Rammstein, Björk, Enya) are far less distracting. I use music to mask open office noise including customer support personnel on phone calls, ops people…

> Industrial, death metal, and recordings of rainfall all work just as well for me

Death metal is surprisingly conducive to productive work. I mostly like music with a heavy repetitive beat and minimal lyrical content.

The music I find effective drowns out surroundings and distracts the mind a bit while being very simple and repetitive so that it does not engage too much mental energy.

I really like classical music but find it to be no good for programming because it is to varied and complex and so i will get distracted in appreciating the musical composition.

Re: The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013)

#37

Post by mindways »

wildrhythms wrote: post #3

tl;dr: "participants performed better in silence than they did in any music conditions" Personally, I cannot listen to music and work... I get too caught up in trying to follow the music. I end up just wearing my noise canceling headphones with no music playing and working in relative silence. That said, I'm interested to know if folks here on HN can relate.

For me, it really depends on the type of task. For things requiring high concentration or pinpoint mental focus, music gets in the way. For things requiring flow or invigoration, music can help me get/stay in the zone; and if something requires raw mental stamina (ie, it's something tedious or that I otherwise have to force myself to do), music can help me persist.

So, eg for programming: if it's a problem that's new to me or of notable complexity, music gets in the way. But if I'm hacking together a quick script that's just variations on easy/known problems, I can do it faster with music, and if it's something I'd rather not be working on music can up my productivity by lowering the number of brain-breaks I need to take.

In a completely different direction, for many forms of creative-artistic work, I find music helps massively.

Re: The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013)

#38

Post by ericdykstra »

manicdee wrote: post #8

As a music listener I will point out the obvious flaw in the study: the “choice” of music was from pop genres. I find music with distinguishable lyrics in a language I understand to be distracting while music with no lyrics, or lyrics indistinguishable from noise (cf Rammstein, Björk, Enya) are far less distracting. I use music to mask open office noise including customer support personnel on phone calls, ops people…

I'd also like to point out that giving listeners a new music experience rather than listening to familiar music is a flaw in the study. There's an obvious difference between listening to the same albums or playlists that one always listens to while working or studying, and a new aural experience.

Re: The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013)

#39

Post by lsc »

"In agreement with the first hypothesis, performance scores were significantly higher in silence (M= 12.94) than in all four music conditions, intensity levels, and types of music combined"

For those comparing this to work performance, where do you work that "silence" is an option, and are you hiring?

Re: The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013)

#40

Post by mark-r »

> Interestingly, this study revealed some evidence that overall background noise, such as television, music, and chatter could improve performance in complex cognitive tasks for extraverts, although it will significantly impair introverts’ performance (Furnham & Bradley, 1997).

Maybe this explains why open offices are so popular with higher-ups? They tend to be extroverts, and if their own personal experience is that distracting noise is positive... I've always wondered why the negative impact isn't completely self-evident.

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