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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)

#41

Post by jnordwick »

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 do about 75% of my work with music. That is the boring simple boilerplate that barely requires consciousness about sleeping.

The other 25% that requires more mental concentration i need to turn the mute the music.

The 75% typing or something similar is more the bootleneck than anything cognitive so I doubt being musicless would help.

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

#43

Post by magila »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #12

The problem with this paper is that it ignores ADHD. It can be very difficult or impossible to maintain concentration for periods of time longer than some minutes (or even seconds) for an ADHD person and certain kinds of music can help mitigate this problem in some cases. BTW amphetamine works alike AFAIK: it induces hyperactivity and harms concentration in healthy people but calms ADHD people down and induces concen…

> it induces hyperactivity and harms concentration in healthy people

This is wrong. They don't like to talk about it, but air forces around the world have been giving amphetamines to pilots since WWII. They're used to enable pilots to maintain focus for long missions. The US Air Force conducted studies on amphetamines in the 50s and concluded that they do indeed improve pilots' performance.

Edit: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphetamine#Enhancing_performa...

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

#44

Post by harlanji »

I def prefer the quiet. Avid music fan, ears blown from 2 decades of festivals, clubs, and chonic headphoning. Certain beats on the stereo are good but I won't do headphones anymore. Final problem with headphones in office is political, visually implies being closed with a good margin of false positives and negatives.

I've no data, but my life programming with constant music started in offices to cope and I think I am better without the blaring noise. I've made other substantial changes that I think made desire for loud noises generally be negated. I think I am way more sharp now, similar to 17yo self before headphone coping began

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

#45

Post by dboreham »

mark-r wrote: post #40

> 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…

Also cheaper which could explain popularity with higher ups.

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

#46

Post by dboreham »

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.

To add a data point: listening to music significantly improves my focus (any kind of music but techno is particularly helpful). However listening to any form of human voice alone (podcasts, Netflix sound only) completely destroys my focus (or the inverse: I focus on my task but totally tune out the voice material).

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

#47

Post by neutrinoq »

As a counterpoint to this, here's an article citing multiple peer reviewed studies that says largely the opposite, that certain types of music can be quite beneficial to cognitive performance: https://blog.pzizz.com/how-music-can-help-you-focus-and-get-...

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

#48

Post by marmaduke »

harlanji wrote: post #44

I def prefer the quiet. Avid music fan, ears blown from 2 decades of festivals, clubs, and chonic headphoning. Certain beats on the stereo are good but I won't do headphones anymore. Final problem with headphones in office is political, visually implies being closed with a good margin of false positives and negatives. I've no data, but my life programming with constant music started in offices to cope and I think I a…

Last year I started with the headphones at work to block out the noise, but I got a lot of pushback about being “unavailable”. Amazingly on a team using Slack, where I usually respond instantly.

I’d expect though, that when your brain has to maintain focus actively (w/o headphones) it does a better job overall, than with, and it forces you to prioritize for tasks which are worth focusing on.

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

#50

Post by ScottBurson »

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.

Permit me to recommend the ambient music of the late Lucette Bourdin [0] [1]. I find it easy to tune out (a few of the tracks are distracting, but not many), yet interesting enough not to be monotonous. She was quite prolific — if you're wondering where to start, Horse Heaven (a free download at [1]) is among her best.

[0] http://www.lbourdin.com/

[1] http://relaxedmachinery.com/earthmantra/artist-detail.php?id...

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