What kind of music can improve performance when I listen to it at work?



People who listen to music while working or studying argue that 'listening to music improves concentration and productivity', while those who argue that 'while listening to music they can't concentrate because they are distracted' There are. Research teams

at City University of New York at Baruch and Rutgers University conducted experiments to see how listening to music while at work can help analyze the relationship between music and work performance.

APA PsycNet
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fxap0000202

Should you listen to music when you work?
https://theconversation.com/should-you-listen-to-music-when-you-work-130436



Researchers around the world have been studying the effects of music on the performance of tasks such as exercise, work, and study for many years. However, the research team that published this paper noted that much of the traditional research was focused on specific contexts and tasks, and the research team developed a more widely applicable framework, A new experiment was performed.

The research team asked the experiment participants the simple task of `` removing words containing 'a' from the word list '' and the complicated task of `` remembering word pairs and remembering them later '' The task was given and the task was performed in a 'quiet environment' or 'music flowing environment'

Each participant who performed the task while listening to music was divided into a `` group listening to simple music '' and a `` group listening to complex music '', and further divided into different groups even if the volume was large or small . 'Simple music' means that the music used was one or two instruments, the melody did not change frequently, and the tempo was slow. And 'complex music' is a song with a fast tempo, which includes a variety of instruments and the melody may change frequently.



The experiment showed that there was no difference in performance between the group not listening to music and the group listening to simple music in performing simple tasks. However, the group that heard the complex music performed the best for simple tasks. In addition, the group that did not listen to music performed the best for complex tasks, while the group that listened to music performed poorly regardless of the type or volume of music.

The team's results suggest that 'the amount of mental resources devoted to music and work' may determine the impact of music on work performance. If mental resources are underutilized, they may be bored and unable to stay focused, but if mental resources are overwhelmed, work performance will suffer. And that.

The research team pointed out that listening to complex music can moderate moderate mental resources, resulting in high performance because the mental resources required to perform simple tasks are small. On the other hand, the mental resources required to perform complex tasks are large, so listening to music could exhaust resources and reduce task performance.

In summary, listening to complex music can improve performance when working on relatively simple and repetitive tasks, and not performing music when performing complex tasks can be better. However, in addition to the nature of tasks and music, it seems that the person's personality also affects performance, and people who are more sensitive to external stimuli spend less mental resources consumed by listening to music than less sensitive people. That it is big. Therefore, whether to listen to music during work is not a simple answer, the research team said that there is an `` appropriate sweet spot '' depending on the type of task, the complexity of the music, and the personality of the individual .



in Science, Posted by log1h_ik