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?