[Post 3.2] Controversial Thoughts: Is it beneficial to listen to music while studying?
Now, I have always thought of music as the condiment to my dry, boring workload. More often than not I find myself more enjoyable while studying with music yet getting distracted by its lyrics and melody at the same time. After understanding the power of certain Hertz in wavelength when it comes to meditation, I want to explore how academic performance and cognition can be affected by music, and how we can ultimately use the tool of music to enhance learning.
Benefits of Studying with Music
Everywhere we go, from libraries to offices, it seems that people cannot operate without listening to some sort of background music. The Mozart effect, a term coined from a study that suggested listening to music could actually enhance intelligence, has been widely refuted in recent years as researchers cannot find direct evidence; however, there are still pros of listening to music while studying:
- Music that is soothing and relaxing can help students to beat stress or anxiety while studying.
- Music is mood-enhancing. It can help us mentally ease into an assignment in the first place.
- In some cases, students have found that music helps them with memorization, due to certain beat patterns and association methods.
Drawbacks of Listening to Music while Studying
Studies have shown that music is oftentimes more distracting than it is helpful.
- Students who listen to music with lyrics while reading or writing tend to be less efficient and come away having absorbed less information.
- Loud or agitated music can make focus much more difficult.
- Students who use music to help them memorize sometimes need to listen to music while taking the test in order to reap the benefits of this study method. In the silent test-taking environment, these students may find it more difficult to recall the information. (BBC)
Interesting Study
A recently published article in “Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain” by Tram Nguyen, a Scientist on the Cambridge Brain Sciences team, examined the effects of background music on memory by using music to alter the listener’s mood (happy or sad) and arousal states (positive or negative). Participants completed three memory tasks while listening to four types of music:
High arousal, positive music: upbeat tempos combined with happier harmonies, like Ghosts N Stuff by Deadmau5
High arousal, negative music: upbeat tempos, but chord structures are darker and more ominous, like Tempting Time — Animals as Leaders
Low arousal, positive music: slow tempos combined with major (aka, “happy”) chords, like Hello My Lovely — Charlie Haden Quartet West
Low arousal, negative music: slow tempos, but melodies are dominated by minor chords that elicit feelings of despondency, like Prelude in E Minor — Frédéric Chopin
Here are the results:
Memory performance was best while listening to low arousal, negative music, and worst for high arousal negative music. However, compared to silence, background music had either no effect for some participants or significantly impeded memory performance. It turns out some people use the same mental processes that are required to remember things to also process music, which means that a percentage of the brain regions responsible for memory — regions you need to focus on the task at hand — are actually being re-allocated to processing background noise.
My Takeaway:
The biggest takeaway from my research comes down to one term — “Attention drainage effect”. Our brain struggles to handle external distractions such as passing passengers or cute pets, let alone internal distractions from the voices in our heads; when we encounter music, it is inevitable for us to sing along or tap into the melody no matter how hard we try not to. It takes away our primary focus from the work we are supposed to do, which is often challenging, onto the more enjoyable music as a coping mechanism. I believe some of the test results are inconclusive as “math exam” cannot represent all the work we will encounter; however, the results are evident in how distracting music can be towards certain kinds of work. In my opinion, highly difficult reading and writing that do require a lot of mental focus will be affected, while repetitive daily tasks and art-related projects can actually be positively impacted by music.
