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MUSIC MORE DISTRACTING
Is Music More Distracting as we Age?
A Look at Personality, Background Music and Middle Age
Anne A. Student
Guilford College
Abstract
This study looked at the effect of music on cognitive performance and how being introverted or extroverted interacts with this effect in middle-aged participants. Middle-aged participants were used because prior studies have all been done on traditional college age subjects. It was predicted that music would hinder performance in all subjects but that introverts would be more negatively affected by the music than extroverts. Participants were assigned to either a no music group or a music group that heard popular vocal music while completing two cognitive tasks. No significant results were found, but there was a trend for higher scores in the music condition regardless of personality. Further studies need to be on middle-aged adults before generalizing results.
Keywords: age differences, cognitive performance, music
Is Music More Distracting as we Age?
A look at Personality, Background Music and Middle Age
Music is a part of all cultures and has been shown to have powerful influence over many aspects of day-to-day life. Music can affect our moods, whether happy or sad; can excite or calm us; is sometimes enjoyable and sometimes irritating (Sousou, 1997; The Power of Music, 2001). Music is also personal – what one person likes, another dislikes. With such influence it is no wonder so many studies have looked at how music affects the many areas of our lives.
The effect background music has on cognitive ability is one such area that has been widely studied. Results of the many studies done in this area have been conflicting. Very early research suggested that music has a positive effect on cognitive tasks; an increase in worker productivity for example (Sundstrom, 1986). More recent studies found that music’s ability to increase worker productivity is dependent on the complexity of the job being performed. In their 1995 study, Oldham, Cummings, Mischel, Schmidtke, and Zhou found that music did indeed lead to higher worker productivity in certain tasks. The positive effect of music was greatest in routine, low complexity jobs. As job complexity increased, the positive effect of music decreased, with productivity in tasks of high complexity being somewhat hindered by music.
Other research has shown that music has a negative impact on cognitive tasks. In a study that looked at background music’s effect on learning from a multimedia source, the addition of music was shown to decrease both verbal recall and problem solving (Moreno & Mayer, 2000). In their study, Moreno and Mayer discuss arousal theory and coherence theory - two theories that coincide with the sometimes positive and sometimes negative effect music has on cognition. Arousal theory suggests that music increases a person’s arousal, which leads to a higher attention level, and therefore enhanced learning. On the other hand, coherence theory suggests that unnecessary music will cause cognitive overload and therefore reduce the capacity for learning and storing information (Moreno & Mayer, 2000). The results of their study found a negative association between music and learning - a finding consistent with coherence theory.
Searching for a cause of the conflicting results from past studies, Furnham and Bradley (1997) studied the role of personality differences in music’s effect on cognition. They used Eysenck’s theory of personality to define differences between persons who are introverted and persons who are extroverted. Eysenck suggests that one’s personality determines whether external stimuli have a positive or negative effect on performance. His theory has shown that introverts have a lower optimum level of arousal than extroverts, and therefore, cannot tolerate as much external stimuli as extroverts (Furnham, Trew & Sneade, 1999). Based on Eysenck’s theory, Furnham et al (1997) suggested that some of the disparity in past results could be attributed to this difference in personality types. In this study, they tested participants on several cognitive tasks in the presence and absence of music. They also had participants complete the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire in order to obtain their level of introversion or extroversion and hypothesized that all participants would score lower in the presence of background music, but introverts would be more negatively affected by the music than the extroverts. Results of their study supported Eysenck’s theory in part - introverts’ scores on the cognitive tasks performed in the presence of music were lower than the extraverts’ scores in the same condition, but only one condition produced significantly lower results.
In a study designed to extend research on the interaction personality has with music’s effect on cognition (1997), Furnham and Strbac (2002) added another dimension and compared the distracting effects of music or background noise on introverts and extroverts. They predicted that music would lead to lower overall performance of both introverts and extraverts, with introverts being more negatively affected than extraverts. They also predicted that background noise would have a stronger negative affect on performance than music. In two of the three cognitive tasks tested in the music conditions, this prediction was shown to be true - the presence of music did lower performance. Scores of the third task showed a trend toward lower performance levels in all participants in the presence of music, however the results were not significant.
Adding to the abundance of research in this area, and to the number of conflicting results, other researchers have examined whether the type of music being listened to makes a difference in performance on cognitive tasks. In one such study, Crawford and Strapp (1994) evaluated subjects on three different cognitive tests performed under three different conditions – no music, instrumental music, or vocal music. It was hypothesized that music would have a debilitating effect upon cognitive ability, with vocal music being the most distracting. Results of this study were mixed. In two of the cognitive tests, vocal music was shown to distract more than the other two conditions, while on the third measure of cognitive ability, both vocal and instrumental music equally affected scores. When Crawford and Strapp correlated test results with subjects’ preference for studying with or without music, they found the debilitating effect of music was moderated by the preference to study while listening to music. Not surprisingly those subjects reporting a preference for studying with music also tested as significantly more extroverted than those who reported studying without music, another result supportive of the Eysenck’s personality theory.
Limitations in each of the studies may also account for some of the inconsistencies in results. Oldham et al.’s (1995) study could be skewed because they only used participants who indicated a desire to listen to music while working. Results may have been different if the study had included workers who indicated they preferred to work without music. Moreno and Mayer did not take personality differences into account in their study on background music’s relation to learning. If the majority of their 75 participants were more introverted than extraverted, this could have skewed their results toward the finding that music hindered learning. Age of participants is a limitation consistent in all the studies - none looked at participant age as a variable in their outcomes. Oldham et al. did not provide participant age in their study, while all the other studies have had a mean participant age of 25 or under.
With technology available today that provides personal access to music almost any time and any place, music’s effect on cognitive performance remains an important question, particularly in the area of workplace performance. In order to provide data that is more relevant to the workplace, it is necessary to study subjects who are beyond traditional college age and, therefore, are more representative of the workforce than subjects in previous studies. In their 2002 study, Furnham and Strbac discuss using office noise and popular music in order to make the results applicable to work settings, yet they used participants who are the British equivalent to traditional US freshman and sophomore college students.
To address these limitations, this study looked at the effect music has on the performance of middle-age adults by testing participant’s performance on two cognitive tasks (reading comprehension and math computations) under two conditions: (1) popular vocal music being played during the tasks and (2) no music being played during the tasks. Vocal music was used because past studies have shown it to be more distracting than instrumental music and because it is what people most often choose to listen to in a work environment. In addition to the music condition, participants will be tested to determine their level of introversion or extroversion in order to look for interaction effects between music and personality trait.
Because middle-age is seen by some developmental psychologists as a time when the capacity of working memory decreases (Santrock, 2006), it was predicted that the presence of background music would lead to lower test scores on both tasks in both introverted and extroverted subjects, but that introverts would be more strongly impacted by the music than the extroverts. Introverts and extroverts were expected to perform equally in the no music condition.
Method
Participants
Participants in this study consisted of 21 volunteers recruited from a large business in the community. The subjects were between 32 and 56 year of age, with a mean age of 46.3 years (SD = 7.38). Subjects were predominately Caucasian (N = 17) and male participants made up 81% of the total, while females represented 19% of the total participants.
Measures
The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Brief Version (EPQ-BV) was used to collect data on participants’ level of introversion or extroversion. This questionnaire consists of 24 questions designed to measure the personality traits of extroversion and neuroticism. As neuroticism is not a factor in this study, only the twelve questions related to extroversion were used. Questions are answered on a 5-point Likert-type scale with a possible range of scores from 12 to 60. Low scores represent a higher degree of introversion while scores at the upper end of the scale represent high levels of extroversion. Test-retest reliability for the EPQ-BV is good at .92, while the coefficient alpha is .92 for the questions on extroversion and .90 for questions related to neuroticism (Sato, 2005). Introversion and extroversion for this experiment was determined by a cutoff score of 36 on the EPQ-BV. Participants scoring 36 or less were labeled as introverts and 37 or above as extroverts.
The number of correct scores on both a reading comprehension task and a math computations task measured cognitive performance. For the reading comprehension task, participants read four passages of approximately 100 words each, each followed by two multiple-choice questions. Subjects scored two points for each correct answer with a total possible score of 16 on this task. The math task consisted of ten problems - eight multiple-choice and two fill-in-the-blank. As on the reading task, each correct answer was worth two points with a possible total score of 20. Subjects were given a maximum of 20 minutes to complete both tasks. Questions were taken from the standardized SAT test published by College Board.
A questionnaire to collect demographic data and music listening preferences was also given to each participant. Information obtained included age, gender, race, and answers to questions on preference for listening to music while working, listening habits, and opinions on the distractive effects of music.
Procedures
Participants were randomly assigned to either the music or no-music condition. Participants in the music condition (N = 10) were tested first. They were told they were participating in a study on testing in a group environment versus an individual setting. All were informed that the information collected was confidential and that they could withdraw at any time; an Informed Consent was obtained for all participants. Participants were given the EPQ-BV questionnaire prior entering the testing room. Once this questionnaire was complete, participants entered the testing room as a group. The music was already playing so as not to draw attention as it was turned on. The music consisted of vocal pop music and was playing from a laptop computer set at a quiet volume. Songs were chosen from the top five songs on Billboard’s Top 40 charts from the 1980’s to 2006. Participants were asked to remain in their seats when they finished the test. At the end of the 20 minutes allotted for the test, the music was turned off and participants were asked to fill out the demographic questionnaire. They were then be debriefed and thanked for their participation.
Participants in the no-music condition (N = 11) were tested immediately after the music group and followed the same procedures, only no music was playing in the background.
Results
Results were analyzed using 2 (music/no music) X 2 (introvert/extrovert) between subjects ANOVAs to examine the effect music and personality had on test scores. For the reading comprehension task no significant difference was found in test scores between the music (M = 13.20, SD = 3.16) and no music groups (M = 11.45, SD = 3.36), F(1, 17) = 1.76, p = .20, eta2 = .09. As predicted, there was no main effect for personality. Mean reading comprehension scores for introverts were 13.78 (SD = 2.11) while mean scores for extroverts were 11.17 (SD = 3.67), F(1,17) = 3.83, p = .07, eta2 = .18. There was also no significant interaction found between music and personality, F(1,17) = .14, p = .71,eta2 = .01. Music did not affect reading comprehension scores differently for either introverts or extroverts in this study. See Table 1 in Appendix A for a summary of these results.