Inherently Distracting, Yet So Enjoyable. Can Music Improve Our Cognitive Endurance?

Abstract

The current study focuses on the impact that music has on motivation as seen through persistence on a time-consuming task and task performance. Most previous research reveals that when music is coupled with a mentally challenging task, performance tends to be negatively impacted by the presence of music. The current research examined the influence music has on participants' desire to persist in a challenging and time-consuming task. The study assesses the hypothesis that when music is coupled with a mentally challenging / draining task, participants will spend longer on the task than participants completing the same task without music. To evaluate this hypothesis a study was created that examined performance and persistence on logic puzzles and a free writing task when participants completed these tasks with and without background music. Findings from the study revealed that, when performing logic puzzles, participants in the music condition took significantly longer to achieve the same level of accuracy as those in the no music condition, suggesting that the presence of music was detrimental to performance on this task. On the writing task, the number of words produced were not significantly different between the music and no music conditions, but participants who completed the task without music tended to spend more time writing their responses than those who completed the task with music in the background. These findings suggest that the presence of music was not detrimental to the writing task and may have increased the efficiency of the writing process. Interestingly these results do not support the primary hypothesis that the presence of music would lead to longer task persistence, though the music appears to have had a positive impact on the creative writing task. The results of this experiment suggest that the presence of music may be detrimental to some cognitive tasks but could potentially facilitate others. Keywords: Cognitive Performance, Endurance, Multitasking, Music, Arousal, Persistence