Believe it or not, studying is a common activity for us students and we tend to do these things for long periods of times, especially if you are a MSBS student. Everyone has their different studying techniques and environments that they prefer. Some like dead silence, isolated in their room, others love coffee shops where there is a ton of activity around. A common thing people like to do while studying or doing work , is to listen to music. Many studies have investigated whether listening to music has affected learning and memory, and the results vary.
This study tested college students’ memories while listening to either pop music, classical music, or silence. The results demonstrated that college students recall more content after listening to pop music or silence during study when compared to classical music (Mensink, M., Dodge, L., 2014). The researcher believed that classical music had negative effects because the students were not used to this type of music and found it more distracting than pop music. The results from their study also showed that silence compared to music showed significant results. This suggests that the auditory environment potentially limits the student’s ability to study.
Another study compared background music with and without lyrics to determine if it affected work performance. Background music with lyrics had a greater effect on attention performance compared to that without lyrics. They also found that background music increases work satisfaction (Shih, N., Huang, H., 2012).
Looking at all of these studies, it seems that more research is needed to determine whether it is beneficial to listen to music while studying. It seems that listening to music while studying is very personal and results vary from each person. From personal experience I believe listening to lofi or soft background music at low volume, that does not have lyrics keeps me focused! What do you guys think about background noise while you study for your exams?
Shih, Y. N., Huang, R. H., & Chiang, H. Y. (2012). Background music: effects on attention performance. Work (Reading, Mass.), 42(4), 573–578.
Mensink, C., M., Dodge, L. (2014). Music and memory: effects of listening to music while studying in college students. University of Wisconsin. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/77348.
I used to listen to music while studying all the time in undergrad, but now I find it more distracting than anything. When working on homework assignments I tend to listen to classical music but when I study now I rarely listen to music. I think the connection between background music and the impacts on memory are rather difficult to study for the reason that you mentioned - the results vary so much from person to person. It would be amazing if we knew that listening to one type of music while studying would help create more neural connections in our brains to help us have better recall while taking an exam.
ReplyDeleteOne study found that there was no interaction between background music and recall performance but individuals that had a higher working memory capacity learned better while listening to background music. It seems like this study just solidifies that music and memory is subjective and varies greatly from person to person.
Lehmann, J. A. M., & Seufert, T. (2017). The Influence of Background Music on Learning in the Light of Different Theoretical Perspectives and the Role of Working Memory Capacity. Front. Psychol. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01902
Thanks for the interesting read, Desiree! You had me at Lofi Girl. I used to listen to lofi on repeat at the beginning of this semester but I ended up falling asleep most of the time so I have turned to silence. This sparked my interest to see how different music has been utilized to help people sleep. In this study by Trahan et al. (2018), they had found that classical music had been mostly used as a tool to help their participants sleep as compared to pop, ambient, or instrumental. Although, in their survey, most participants mentioned listening to music to help them relax, focus, or change their mood in different settings (Trahan et al., 2018). This suggests that music can have many purposes depending on the individual whether it be studying or sleeping. With the wide range of music and individual differences out there, this may be a difficult research topic but it is definitely worth looking into.
ReplyDeleteTrahan, T., Durrant, S. J., Müllensiefen, D., & Williamson, V. J. (2018). The music that helps people sleep and the reasons they believe it works: A mixed methods analysis of online survey reports. PloS one, 13(11), e0206531. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206531
I thought your blog post was very interesting! I almost always listen to background music like lofi when studying for exams and I think that it is more a personal experience, as you found from your research, because I personally feel more motivated to study for longer periods of time with music. In your post, you mentioned it was found that background music increases work satisfaction and I was wondering if you believe that this can be attributed to the arousal effect music can have on some people? I found an article by Lehmann & Seufert (2017) that states there is a well-established relationship between music and arousal. This article also explains that arousal characterizes physical activation.
ReplyDeleteLehmann, J., & Seufert, T. (2017, October 31). The Influence of Background Music on Learning in the Light of Different Theoretical Perspectives and the Role of Working Memory Capacity. Retrieved November 14, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5671572/