Running head: EFFECTS OF MUSIC

The Influence of Music Between Introverts and Extraverts

Northern Arizona University

Kayla Rine

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Abstract

The cornerstone of this study explored the influence of music on reading comprehension

with regards to personality type. Two conditions were administered to manipulate the presence

of music and the ability to retain information. The first condition required participants to read a

short story without listening to music and take a reading comprehension assessment on the

information in the story. The second condition consisted of participants reading a separate short

story with music playing and take another reading comprehension assessment. The sample

included 31 participants with ages ranging from 18-44. About 64.5% of this sample was

Caucasian. It was hypothesized that extraverts study better in a loud environment and that

reading comprehension is hindered in both introverts and extraverts depending on the

environment. To test these hypotheses, a two-way ANOVA was used, but significant results

were not obtained. We did, however, notice a pattern that showed extraverts performing better

than introverts in the music condition. With a larger sample size, a more in depth personality

assessment, and primarily matching groups based on similar GPAs, future research can go in the

right direction. Our results have contributed to research in this area and may be beneficial to

students wanting to find the best way to study and retain information.

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Memory is an important mechanism to use whether it is multi-tasking at work,

remembering a lecture at a university, or studying material for an upcoming test. Memory

includes the basic mechanisms of encoding, retrieving, and maintaining material so that one can

accomplish a task that requires concentration (Miyake & Shah, 1999). The two main types of

memory are short-term memory and long-term memory, as explained below by Friedenberg &

Silverman (2012). Short- term memory is also referred to as working memory because it

involves manipulating small amounts of information to remember for a short amount of time. It

is also explained that long-term memory requires encoding information in a way that it could be

remembered for a long amount of time. Encoding material therefore requires making material

meaningful so that it can be transferred from working memory to long-term memory. Retrieving

information involves successfully transferring short-term memory into long-term memory so that

an individual can recall and maintain information. Maintaining material is the process through

which an individual works towards memorizing information through rehearsal and other

techniques that enable the ability to retrieve information later on (Friedenberg & Silverman,

2012). These basic mechanisms are often the core of research in cognitive psychology and

provide insight on the basic functions of memory.

General theories and research that support the basic mechanisms of memory clarify the

ways memory works in processing information. Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) proposed that

information stored in short-term memory lasts for fifteen to thirty seconds, as compared to

information stored in long-term memory that can last for years. The idea that short-term memory

needs to be manipulated through rehearsal and other memory techniques is reflected in Klatzky’s

(1975) workbench analogy. The concept behind the workbench analogy is that small amounts of

information are stored in short-term memory on “shelves”, but can be taken off the shelves to be

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“worked” on in order to encode information into long-term memory (Klatzky, 1975). This

analogy is useful in explaining the importance of concentration on a task to improve memory and

highlights another key theory of the central executive. The central executive is explained by a

theory of how the mind works and portrays the central executive as controlling and regulating

the ability to process information.

The central executive is a model developed by Baddeley & Hitch (1974) that illustrates

the ability for an individual to selectively direct attention to a specific task. The central

executive, however, has a limited capacity in multi-tasking because attention is prioritized to

certain activities while other tasks conflict with focused attention (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). In

other words, the central executive controls selective attention, but is limited to preventing

divided attention when working on multiple tasks simultaneously. For example, the central

executive is responsible for the memory process of language in the phonological loop, as

described by Baddeley & Hitch (1974), and can be interfered with if attention drifts to

background noise containing speech (Crawford & Strapp, 1994). Furthermore, the findings of

Craik, et al. (1996) show that divided attention hinders the process of encoding information in

short-term memory, but not retrieval Therefore, multi-tasking while encoding information may

be more harmful than helpful during a task that requires concentration.

Another way of improving short-term memory is by encoding information on a deeper, or

more analytical, level of processing so that material is remembered in meaningful ways, as

opposed to irrelevance (Rose, 2013). A deeper level of processing requires the ability for an

individual to interpret material in a manner that is relatable to previous knowledge so that it can

be remembered (Friedenberg & Silverman, 2012). Clearly, this task requires an increased level

of attention to analyze information in working memory so that it can be processed into long-term

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memory. In the study done by Rose (2013), results showed that deeper levels of processing led to

an improvement in reading comprehension and recall because it required analyzing the material

being read.

Specifically the task of reading and analyzing material plays a crucial role in the study

habits of students. Processing information on an analytical level with focused attention appears

to be the most sensible method of studying material so that it can be retained. However, students

exhibit many different forms of studying and attempting to remember material. The two most

common study habits include studying with background noise or silence. It has been shown that

loud music played at a fast tempo is more disruptive to reading comprehension compared to

slow, classical music (Thompson et al., 2011). This may be due to the fact that the central

executive exceeds its capacity when too much of a stimulus is interfering with a current task.

In addition to this finding, background music has been shown to hinder reading

comprehension compared to silence. Cauchard et al. (2012) illustrated that when background

music is playing, participants spend more time reading material, fixating on material while trying

to cognitively process the information, and their saccadic eye movements revert back to the

beginning of the sentence. Specifically vocal music, compared to instrumental music, interferes

with the phonological loop, which processes verbal and auditory information, and burdens the

central executive with simultaneous tasks (Crawford & Strapp, 1994). When studying whether

students were aware that music hinders concentration on a task (Kotsopoulou & Hallam, 2010),

researchers found that students turned music off as soon as a task became too difficult and

required undivided attention. It was reported that students listened to music while working on a

task depending on the mood they were in, music served as a motivation to concentrate on a task,

and students listened to music if they were bored (Kotsopoulou & Hallam, 2010). Different

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preferences for study habits may be due to personality differences that determine the impact

music has on reading comprehension.

A personality factor that may determine the preference to study with or without music is

the level of extraversion, as explained by Eysenck & Eysenck (1975). Being that introversion is

the opposite of extraversion, the main difference between introversion and extraversion is the

amount of a stimulus needed to meet a threshold. Extraverts need more stimuli to meet their

threshold of arousal, whereas, introverts do not need a lot of stimuli to meet their threshold.

When studying the effects of music on reading comprehension, it is important to keep this

concept in mind.

Studies that have explored the effects of music on reading comprehension between

introverts and extraverts have found significant differences. It has been reported that extraverts

perform better while listening to music, compared to introverts that are hindered through music

playing while reading (Daoussis & McKelvie, 1986; Furnham & Bradley, 1997). Overall,

however, the performance of both introverts and extraverts is hindered through background

music and the majority of research does not support the use of background music when studying

or reading (Furnham & Bradley, 1997). Therefore, it is more likely that music interferes with

reading comprehension, specifically through burdening the central executive with too much

stimulation.

Majority of research done on the topic of listening to music and its effects on reading

comprehension does not clearly state whether studying should be done with or without any kind

of distractions or background noise. Furthermore, majority of research focuses on either rock or

classical music instead of a genre that is in between. An example of a genre that is in between is

coffee shop music. The current study seeks to fulfill these literature gaps by focusing on the

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effects of listening to a music genre that is neither too fast pace nor too slow pace and to answer

the question of whether listening to music is beneficial in successfully retaining material.

The current study proposes the question of whether music improves or hinders

reading comprehension. It is hypothesized that music will hinder reading comprehension in both

introverts and extraverts and that extraverts will perform slightly better than introverts while

music is playing. To influence reading comprehension between introverts and extraverts, the two

conditions include one without any music playing while participants read a short story and take a

short reading comprehension assessment and one with a coffee shop song playing while

participants read a short story and take a reading comprehension assessment.

MethodProcedure

The study took place in two medium-sized classrooms on campus with the permission of

the professors. Participants were given a packet including a demographic questionnaire, first

short story, first reading comprehension assessment, personality assessment, second short story,

and a second reading comprehension assessment.

To begin the experiment, research assistants informed participants that they would give

instructions for when to continue on to the next page of the packet. Within the packet, the short

stories consisted of the history of inventing the paperclip and the history of inventing ice cream.

These short stories were taken off of a website that included information on the topics of the

stories. These stories were then modified for the study to have the same amount of content and

length by shortening the stories to about three hundred words. After the completion of the first

condition, participants were instructed to take a personality assessment. Participants were asked

to read through the other short story with a song playing at a medium level volume for 1:30

minutes. Participants took a seven-question reading comprehension assessment on the content of

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the story. When 1:30 minutes passed, participants were given a short questionnaire asking

whether they felt that studying with music or without music is easier and whether studying

should be done with music or no music.

Participants

Participants were students in a psychology research methods class that voluntarily

contributed to our research without any form of compensation. Participants’ ages ranged from

18-44 years old (M=21, SD=3.28). A total of 17 females and 14 males participated in the study

and the main ethnicities of students were Caucasian and Native American.

Measures

Demographic Information. Participants were given a demographic questionnaire to

collect background information after signing an informed consent form. The questionnaire

consisted of five items that asked for sex, age, ethnicity, cumulative grade point average, and

whether the participant listens to music while studying or not. An example question that asked

the participant’s age is “What is your age?” The rest of the questions were presented with given

answers and participants were asked to circle the best answer. These questions included “What is

your sex?” with 1 being male and 2 being female and “What is your ethnicity?” with the options

of “White”, “Asian or Pacific Islander” “Native American or American Indian” , “Black or

African American”, “Hispanic or Latino”, or “Other”.

Reading Comprehension. Participants were asked to read through a short story on the

invention of the paperclip for 1:30 minutes without music playing and asked to take a reading

comprehension assessment for 1:30 minutes with seven questions. Example questions for the

first short story were “How long have people been fastening paper together?” and “Which of the

following was one of the four most successful paperclip designs?” The answers were presented

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in a multiple-choice format with four possible answers to choose from. The same was done for

the second story on the invention of ice cream, which was also about three hundred words.

Example questions from this story included “Who created new recipes for ice cream?” and

“What year did the first ice cream parlor open?” These stories were then modified for the study

to have the same amount of content and length by shortening the stories to about three hundred

words.

Personality Assessment. The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck & Eysenck,

1975) was modified to include personality characteristics that were extraverted. The

questionnaire consisted of five statements that were typical of an extravert ranging from 1 (little

agreement) to 6 (strong agreement). An example of one of the statements is “I take the initiative

to meet new friends”. The highest score for each of the five questions was 6 so the highest score

of extraversion on the assessment was out of 30. All values were added up, giving the participant

a score that was categorized as either extravert or introvert. A score of one through fifteen were

categorized as introverted and all values including sixteen through thirty were categorized as

extraverted.

Design

The design for this study was a within groups design with the alpha level set to .05. The

number of correct answers a participant received on the reading comprehension assessment

measured the independent variable, reading comprehension. The dependent variable was whether

or not music was played. The overall methods, procedures, and design lead to results that

reflected the effects music has on reading comprehension between introverts and extraverts.

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Results

Hypothesis one predicted that music would hinder reading comprehension between

introverts and extraverts. A two-way between-groups analysis of variance was conducted to

determine the affect music had on reading comprehension between introverts and extraverts, as

measured by the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (1975). Based off of this assessment,

participants were compared between two different groups according to their personality type

(introvert or extravert), as illustrated in table one. The results were analyzed with the alpha level

set to .05 and preliminary analyses ensured the assumptions were not violated regarding

normality, linearity, and variances. As shown in figure 1, the results are inconsistent with

hypothesis one because only introverts were slightly hindered by music (M=58.03, SD= 19.84).

Results also demonstrate that the reading comprehension assessments scores are

consistent with hypothesis two, which predicted that extraverts would perform better than

introverts in the music condition, as shown in figure one. Extraverts exhibited better reading

comprehension assessment scores in the music condition (M= 66.03, SD= 24.73) compared to

introverts (M= 58.03, SD= 19.84). From these results, no main effect for personality F(1,

58)=.74, p=.39 and no interaction between personality and music F(1, 58)= .32, p=.57. Despite

not obtaining significance, these results are reflective of the affect music has on reading

comprehension between introverts and extraverts, as shown in the pattern in Figure 1.

Discussion

This study focused on testing the presence of music on reading comprehension between

introverts and extraverts. Although statistical significance was not found, a general pattern

seemed to reflect the increasing performance for extraverts and a decreasing performance for

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introverts in the music condition. The results were not consistent with previous research and did

not support our hypotheses.

Our results are inconsistent with other findings that have an interaction for whether music

is played or not in a reading comprehension task. The findings of Daossis & McKelvie (1986)

demonstrated that the performance of introverts declined during the music condition, but the

improvement of extraverts in the music condition was not confirmed. It was noted in this study

that the experience of listening to music while working on a cognitive task might play a key

factor in whether an individual is used to this kind of stimulus. Based off of Eysenck’s vast

research on personality, extraverts typically respond listening to music more or having a stimulus

to help them focus on a cognitive task. Although this is true, majority of participants reported

listening to music altogether and stated that studying should not be done with music after the

experiment. Participants also conveyed that it was more difficult to read the story while music

was playing. Whether the music allowed the task to be more arduous or allowed extraverts to

concentrate better, our results showed an enormous increase in the performance of extraverts on

the reading comprehension task.

In addition to other studies, Furnham & Bradley (1999) obtained significant results for

the interaction between background music and personality type. Introverts declined in the music

conditions while extraverts performance was enhanced with “complex background music” and

slightly improved with “simple background music” (Furnham & Allass, 1999). The

manipulation of background music on reading comprehension is similar to a considerable

amount of other findings. For this reason, our study filled in a literature gap by choosing a song

with a moderate tempo that was neither too boisterous nor too tranquil. Although Furnham &

Allas (1999) did not attain main effects for extraversion and background music, it was noted that

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results were going in the expected direction. This study is similar to the findings of Furham

&Bradley (1997), which found that there was no main effect for whether music was on or off

during a reading comprehension task, but an interaction between the two was acquired. The

results on the reading comprehension task from Furham & Bradley (1997) show that introverts

were impaired when music was playing, but extraverts were bettered with the music in the

background. This supports the notion that extraverts may perform their best with background

music and that introverts should avoid background music when working on a cognitive task.

Strengths & Limitations

A within groups design allowed the researchers to have power to detect differences

between the conditions and attribute the effects to temporal precedence. The effects of the

separate conditions ensured that the difference was due to the independent variable, reading

comprehension, instead of individual differences. By establishing temporal precedence, the

researchers were able to compare the groups and determine the effects of music. Another

strength of this study is that the researchers needed few participants to determine if the

dependent variable had any affects on the participants. Additionally, the current study almost

achieved sampling validity with a similar amount of males and females and introverts and

extraverts. This may have been due to chance because this was not premeditated before

conducting the experiment.

One of the limitations in the current study includes the classroom environment in which

participants were asked to read through the stories and take the reading comprehension

assessments. A classroom environment may not have been an environment that students typically

feel comfortable studying in. Although we had 31 participants, it would have been beneficial to

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have more participants so that our sample would be more representative of the student population

and have better chances of achieving significant results.

To improve the study, groups could have been matched based on similar GPAs,

administered a more in depth personality assessment, and included longer stories and reading

comprehension assessments. To measure the degree of extraversion, a more in depth personality

assessment could have included a variety of personality characteristics. An example personality

characteristic is “I prefer to have time set aside to be alone” or “I would rather have three close

friends than thirty acquaintances.” With more time, participants could have read a longer story

and taken a longer reading comprehension assessment. A longer reading comprehension

assessment would have been more useful in determining the participant’s ability to retain more

information and recall more details, as opposed to a shorter story with fewer details.

Implications & Future Directions

The overall importance of our study contributes to the notion that personality type plays a

role in performance on cognitive tasks including studying or doing paperwork in an office. This

applies to students wishing to improve their grades and study habits, as well as, allowing

individuals in the work place to achieve their top level of performance. Working more efficiently

and being able to focus more with music may improve performance for extraverts. The influence

of music may therefore be critical in determining one’s ability to work diligently on a cognitive

task.

Future researchers should match groups based on similar GPAs, included a more in depth

personality assessment, manipulated more variables by including songs with different tempos,

and made the stories longer and more laden with content and the reading comprehension

assessments longer with more detailed questions. By matching groups based on similar GPAs

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researchers would be able to rule out differences in test taking and reading comprehension

abilities. One question that can be addressed in future research is what if a specific degree of

extraversion determines the level of impact music has on reading comprehension? Thus, a more

in depth personality assessment can provide more accuracy in dividing the groups into introverts

and extraverts by measuring the degree of extraversion. What if certain volumes of music and

different tempos play a role in either enhancing concentration or facilitating distraction? By

having more songs with varying tempos, researchers may determine what kinds of music benefit

studying depending on the personality type of the individual. Lastly, the stories could be longer

with more content and details to remember so that the reading comprehension assessments could

more accurately determine the influence on music on reading comprehension. With future

research, it is hopeful that evidence will surface for the influence of music on certain personality

types.

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References

Atkinson, R.C & Shiffrin, R.M. (1971). The control processes of short-term memory

Scientific American, 225 (1971), pp. 82–90.

Baddeley, A.D., & Hitch, G. (1974). Working memory. In G.H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of

learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 8, pp. 47–89).

New York: Academic Press.

Cauchard, F., Cane, J. E., & Weger, U. W. (2012). Influence of background speech and music

in interrupted reading: An eye-tracking study. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26(3),

381-390. doi:10.1002/acp.1837

Craik, F. I. M., Govoni, R., Naveh-Benjamin, M., & Anderson, N. D. (1996). The effects of

divided attention on encoding and retrieval processes in human memory. Journal of

Experimental Psychology: General, 125(2), 159-180. doi:10.1037/0096

3445.125.2.159

Crawford, H. J., & Strapp, C. M. (1994). Effects of vocal and instrumental music on

visuospatial and verbal performance as moderated by studying preference and

personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 16(2), 237-245.

doi:10.1016/0191-8869(94)90162-7

Daoussis, L., & McKelvie, S. J. (1986). Musical preferences and effects of music on a reading

comprehension test for extraverts and introverts. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 62(1),

283-289. doi:10.2466/pms.1986.62.1.283

Eysenck, H. J. & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1975). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

(adult andjunior). London: Hodder & Stoughton.

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Friedenberg, J. & Silverman, G. (2012). Cognitive science: an introduction to the study ofmind.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publications, inc.

Furnham, A., & Bradley, A. (1997). Music while you work: The differential distraction of

background music on the cognitive test performance of introverts and extraverts.

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Klatzky, R. (1975). Human Memory: Structure and Processes.

W. H. Freeman & Co., San Francisco.

Kotsopoulou, A., & Hallam, S. (2010). The perceived impact of playing music while studying:

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Miyake, A. & Shah, P. (1999). Models of working memory: mechanisms of activemaintenance

and executive control. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Rose, N. S. (2013). Individual differences in working memory, secondary memory, and fluid

intelligence: Evidence from the levels-of-processing span task. Canadian Journal of

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260-270. doi:10.1037/a0034351

Thompson, W., Schellenberg, E., & Letnic, K. (2011). Fast and loud background music

disrupts reading comprehension. Psychology of Music, doi: 10.1177/0305735611400173.

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Table 1

Demographic Information of Participants

Variables n %Sex Girls 17 54.8Boys 14 45.2EthnicityBlack/African American 1 3.2White 14 64.5Hispanic/Latino 3 9.7Native American 4 12.9Asian/Pacific Islander 3 9.7Other 1 3.2Personality TypeGroup 1: Introvert 16 51.6Group 2: Extravert 15 48.4__________________________________________________________________________

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With Music Without Music54

56

58

60

62

64

66

68

Introvert

Extravert

Conditions

Rea

ding

Com

preh

ensi

on S

core

s (%

)

Figure 1. Average Reading Comprehension Assessment Performance Between Introverts and Extraverts

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