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Listening to music 'significantly impairs' creativity

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Re: Listening to music 'significantly impairs' creativity

#21

Post by Ace17 »

pakitan wrote: post #19

It's funny the result sounds slightly controversial because music doesn't have the bad rep that TV does. If the study's conclusion was "Watching TV significantly impairs creativity", everybody would be like "d'oh!". However, listening to music is also an act of passive consumption, just like watching TV, so the result is not too surprising to me.

I think you're confusing "music" with "radio" here.

Re: Listening to music 'significantly impairs' creativity

#22

Post by pakitan »

Ace17 wrote: post #21
pakitan wrote: post #19

It's funny the result sounds slightly controversial because music doesn't have the bad rep that TV does. If the study's conclusion was "Watching TV significantly impairs creativity", everybody would be like "d'oh!". However, listening to music is also an act of passive consumption, just like watching TV, so the result is not too surprising to me.

I think you're confusing "music" with "radio" here.

I'm pretty sure I'm not confusing anything. However you want to define "music" and "radio", both are passive consumption. Sure, there might be some types of music that engage your brain more than others but that would still be nothing, compared to, say, reading a book.

Re: Listening to music 'significantly impairs' creativity

#24

Post by droithomme »

matchagaucho wrote: post #5

Misleading title. "For example, a participant was shown three words (e.g., dress, dial, flower), with the requirement being to find a single associated word (in this case "sun") that can be combined to make a common word or phrase (i.e., sundress, sundial and sunflower)." This seems more like a pattern recognition puzzle. Not the flow state of "creativity".

Yeah, I find their methodology unconvincing. This is a common problem in research, where some proxy test is presented and simply declared to be a way of measuring creativity, intelligence, empathy, honesty, criminal tendencies, ability to postpone rewards, etc. Eventually each of these methods falls apart due to lack of evidence and is abandoned, but it can take decades. There are still licensed professionals using Rorschach tests to measure personality traits, including creativity, criminal tendencies, and personality disorders, despite there being no evidence that the "test" works to do that. Or consider the use of the lie detector test. Or the ADE 651 "bomb detector". All with about as much evidence behind them as dowsing.

Re: Listening to music 'significantly impairs' creativity

#25

Post by wildrhythms »

afturner wrote: post #23

I'm a classical singer and just all around lover of music.. I'm also a software developer. Listening to music while I program is an absolute disaster. It either has to be a video or an audiobook.

I also have a classical music education and cannot write code (or anything really) with music playing. Vocals, non-vocals, doesn't matter, no matter how hard I try I find myself getting distracted in trying to dissect the music.

Re: Listening to music 'significantly impairs' creativity

#26

Post by _raoulcousins »

Music is a huge distraction while working. White noise or nothing. Some people on my team listen to podcasts while coding, and most of them were watching Cohen's testimony in the background on Wednesday. If they're not fooling themselves about their productivity, I'm really jealous.

Re: Listening to music 'significantly impairs' creativity

#27

Post by ericsoderstrom »

afturner wrote: post #23

I'm a classical singer and just all around lover of music.. I'm also a software developer. Listening to music while I program is an absolute disaster. It either has to be a video or an audiobook.

Video or audio books sound a lot more distracting than music

Re: Listening to music 'significantly impairs' creativity

#28

Post by ves »

wildrhythms wrote: post #25
afturner wrote: post #23

I'm a classical singer and just all around lover of music.. I'm also a software developer. Listening to music while I program is an absolute disaster. It either has to be a video or an audiobook.

I also have a classical music education and cannot write code (or anything really) with music playing. Vocals, non-vocals, doesn't matter, no matter how hard I try I find myself getting distracted in trying to dissect the music.

same. I think this tends to affect people with musical training or experience; my non-musician friends can happily listen to music and work, but I can’t.

Re: Listening to music 'significantly impairs' creativity

#29

Post by Ibethewalrus »

jugg1es wrote: post #10

I have found this anecdotally to be true when doing the actual design work of a project. However, once I know what I want to do, music does typically put me into a groove. If you normally listen to music while coding, you may not realize how distracting it can be during periods of deep thought.

This. I put a disc on repeat

Re: Listening to music 'significantly impairs' creativity

#30

Post by RickJWagner »

I hate to see this. I really like music.

I guess when I'm doing something repetitive and manual (like painting a house), then some music is just a welcome distraction. But when I'm working on something that requires heavy brainpower (like debugging some failing computer process), then silence does seem to be best.

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