BY LOLA RIGG
Improving health worldwide www.lshtm.ac.uk

GOOD 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

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.)

• 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

1. Short survey for subjects about their demographic background
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?
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.

A Stroop test is a demonstration of how reaction time can be affected with interference.

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.

Gender of Participants
70%
30%
Male
Female
Age Range of Study Participants
12.5%
7.5%
45%
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
35%
TOTAL PARTICIPANTS = 40

TIME IN
SECONDS
(MEAN)
MUSIC WITH
LYRICS
STANDARD
DEVIATION
MUSIC
WITHOUT
LYRICS
STANDARD
DEVIATION
NO MUSIC
STANDARD
DEVIATION
1.52
0.43
1.48
0.29
1.44
0.21
P-Value =
WITH LYRICS
COMPARED TO
NO MUSIC
0.18
WITHOUT
LYRICS
COMPARED TO
NO MUSIC
0.36

MUSIC
WITH
LYRICS
STANDARD
DEVIATION
MUSIC
WITHOUT
LYRICS
STANDARD
DEVIATION
NO MUSIC
STANDARD
DEVIATION
ACCURACY
PERCENTAGE
(MEAN)
97 5.58
97.61
3.87
98.96
2.95
P-Value =
WITH LYRICS
COMPARED TO
NO MUSIC
0.05
WITHOUT
LYRICS
COMPARED TO
NO MUSIC
0.08

DO YOU LISTEN TO MUSIC WHILE STUDYING?
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
MUSIC WITH
LYRICS
TOTAL PARTICIPANTS = 40
MUSIC
WITHOUT
LYRICS
NO MUSIC
YES
NO

• 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

• 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

• 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