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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)

#51

Post by scns »

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/

Episode 33 is my favorite

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

#52

Post by Terr_ »

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…

My pet theory for this is that some important parts of your brain are getting co-opted into the code reading/writing process.

Hearing other people talking (musically or otherwise) competes for some of the same neurons.

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

#53

Post by rwnspace »

vanilla_nut wrote: post #25
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…

I've heard that claim about amphetamines before, and I've always doubted it. I know many people who do not seem to have ADHD and who have never been diagnosed who have taken adderall before. They all claim to have used it to study for tests, work on huge projects, etc. with great success. Besides, if amphetamines worked differently on the healthy/ADHD people, wouldn't you just give someone a small dose of amphetamine…

If you want a brilliant and lovely person to listen to about the facts of ADHD, look up Dr Russell Barkley.

That factoid is a myth: the difference is that ADHD meds provide those with ADHD the focus needed to function in modern society, and without it they do not function. There's a theory to do with dopamine regulation and the COMT gene which I don't claim to understand. A generalisation might be 'this gives me dopamine in a pill, so I don't disrupt my environment/chase random thoughts for my dopamine'.

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

#54

Post by Steve44 »

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…

My anecdote. When I was deep in programming I tended not to listen to music I really liked but ones with a fairly steady volume & pace and also quite rhythmic. Dance music such as The Shamen worked well. I wouldn't be actively listening and enjoying the music but if I needed a little mental break I could mentally drop into the music without the risk of losing my thought train.

When concentrating I often listen to classical piano now, composers such as Erik Satie.

I found the modern music was great for coding but if I was writing the classical was better, I suppose the vocals muddled my language train for writing.

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

#55

Post by mark-r »

dboreham wrote: post #45
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.

Cheaper shouldn't matter if it hurts productivity.

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

#56

Post by meej »

I have been listening to the AI-generated music at Brain.fm for about a month now. The focus mode really does seem to help. (I also like the sleep mode, but I need better headphones to wear to bed.)

Before I learned about Brain.fm, I was a fan of the isochronic tone generator at mynoise.net, which I would combine with the "white rain" generator in their iOS app.

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

#57

Post by camgunz »

Yeah I've noticed a big difference in genre too.

I find that I have three main modes:

- I have control over my environment and don't need/want to listen to music or noise

- Creatively I need stimulation, so I listen to sonically interesting music with no lyrics (that I can understand).

- I want to get work done as efficiently as possible but there are too many aural distractions, so I listen to rain.

I do think that I perform the best when not listening to anything, but over time I need to use other parts of my brain so it's nice to do like, idk 80% coding efficiency while getting a "this is an interesting song" fix.

Big fan of video game soundtracks. Thunder Force IV ;)

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