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DOES MUSIC AFFECT
CONCENTRATION LEVELS
AND MENTAL
PERFORMANCE?
Improving health worldwide
www.lshtm.ac.uk
BY LOLA RIGG
BACKGROUND OF HYPOTHESISGOOD MUSIC FOR CONCENTRATION
Synthetic, instrumental or natural sounds with no human speech (lyrics)
• Ambient house
• Instrumental film scores
• Instrumental hip hop
• Video game soundtracks
• Ambient trance
BAD MUSIC FOR CONCENTRATION
Genres that have clear vocals are bad for maintaining high concentration levels as
hearing human speech interferes with the language processing part of the brain,
which is needed for study
• Pop
• Rap
• Country
PREVIOUS STUDIES
One study showed that playing quiet classical music during a recorded
lecture improved learning from the lecture(Dosseville, F., Laborde, S., & Scelles, N. (2012). Music during lectures: Will students learn
better? Learning and Individual Differences, 22, 258-262.)
Another played a highly repetitive piece of music and compared it with a
dissonant, rhythmically varied piece (and to silence) while students were
reading. Reading scores were higher in the low-information-load music
condition than in the other conditions.(Kiger, D. (1989). Effects of music information load on a reading comprehension task.Perceptual and Motor
Skills, 69, 531-534.)
HYPOTHESES
• Playing a game that requires high levels of concentration
while listening to music without lyrics will improve
concentration levels and mental performance more than
listening to music with lyrics
• Reaction time will be faster with fewer mistakes with music
without lyrics, and faster still with no music
METHODOLOGY1. Short survey for subjects about their demographic background
2. Selected a randomisation method; to give subjects three cards to put in a
random order (each card was labelled either lyrics, no lyrics or no music) to
randomly decide the order they will take the tests in.
3. Asked subjects to play Stroop test game three times: once with music that has
lyrics; once with a version of the same song with no lyrics; and once with no music
at all.
SURVEY QUESTIONS
• Age?
• Gender?
• Student or staff?
• Is English your first language?
• Do you usually listen to music when
you need to concentrate?
• If yes, does it usually have lyrics?
WHAT IS A STROOP TEST?A Stroop test is a demonstration of how reaction time can be affected
with interference.
WHAT WAS THE GAME?We found an app called ‘Brain Wars’ which
consists of lots of different games, all designed to
test and improve mental performance. One
game, ‘Colours of Deception’, was very similar
to the Stroop test I wanted to use originally.
PARTICIPANTS
Gender of Participants
Male
Female
Age Range of Study Participants
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-5970%
TOTAL PARTICIPANTS = 40
30%
45%
35%
12.5%
7.5%
RESULTS BY TIME
MUSIC WITH
LYRICS
STANDARD
DEVIATION
MUSIC
WITHOUT
LYRICS
STANDARD
DEVIATIONNO MUSIC
STANDARD
DEVIATION
TIME IN
SECONDS
(MEAN)1.52 0.43 1.48 0.29 1.44 0.21
WITH LYRICS
COMPARED TO
NO MUSIC
WITHOUT
LYRICS
COMPARED TO
NO MUSIC
P-Value = 0.18 0.36
T-TEST RESULTS
RESULTS BY ACCURACY
MUSIC
WITH
LYRICS
STANDARD
DEVIATION
MUSIC
WITHOUT
LYRICS
STANDARD
DEVIATIONNO MUSIC
STANDARD
DEVIATION
ACCURACY
PERCENTAGE
(MEAN)97 5.58 97.61 3.87 98.96 2.95
T-TEST RESULTS
WITH LYRICS
COMPARED TO
NO MUSIC
WITHOUT
LYRICS
COMPARED TO
NO MUSIC
P-Value = 0.05 0.08
COMPARISON BETWEEN GROUPS
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
MUSIC WITHLYRICS
MUSICWITHOUTLYRICS
NO MUSIC
AV
ER
AG
E T
IME
PE
R A
NS
WE
R (
SE
CO
ND
S)
YES
NO
DO YOU LISTEN TO MUSIC WHILE STUDYING?
TOTAL PARTICIPANTS = 40
CONCLUSION
• Listening to music does affect mental performance and
concentration levels
• On average, people have a greater accuracy percentage
when playing this particular game without listening to
music
• People who usually listen to music while studying have a
faster response time when trying to concentrate with music
playing than people who don’t
LIMITATIONS
• Sample size was not big enough; wider range
of participants could have yielded more reliable
results
• Time constraints; more data could have been
collected with more time and I could have
designed a more rigorous experiment
• Availability of tools needed for test was limited
FURTHER STUDIES
• Investigate whether people usually listening to music with lyrics
when studying had an effect on their results
• Investigate whether English being people’s first language had an
effect on their results
• Investigate how different types of music (classical, jazz etc) can
affect peoples’ mental performance and concentration levels
THANK
YOU!Any questions?