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Effect of listening to music on studies.

Previous studies of the effects of music on performance have yielded mixed results. Popular music has

been found adversely to affect reading-test performance of eighth graders and quantitative test

performance of eleventh graders (Williams, 1961). On the other hand, Colbert (1961) reported that

musical stimulation improved performance of some college students on certain recall tasks, while Wolfand Weiner (1972) found that rock music did not impair college students' performance on arithmetic

problems. In all of the research to date, the music has been arbitrarily selected by the experimenter. One

purpose of the present study was to examine the effects on reading comprehension of music chosen by the

subject rather than by the experimenter. A second purpose was to test Wolf and Weiner's (1972)

hypothesis that unfamiliar sounds are more distracting than are familiar ones. One prediction derived

from this hypothesis is that the more frequently individuals study to music, the less music should impair

their performance. Subjects were 16 male and 16 female undergraduate college students, ranging in age

from 19 to 22 yr. Each was tested individually. The two reading comprehension tests were taken from a

Law School Admissions Test preparation booklet. Each test was composed of one passage and five

questions based on the passage. The two passages and sets of questions were considered to be of equal

difficulty. Two points were given for each question answered correctly. Each subject was asked to bring a

preferred record album to the experimental session. Almost all subjects chose popular music. The subject

was instructed to read a passage for a maximum of 10 min. and then answer five questions based on the

passage without referring back to the text. A second passage then was administered in the same fashion.

One passage was read in quiet surroundings (no-music condition) and the other was read with the record

of preferred music playing at moderate volume (music condition). Each passage appeared in the music

condition half the time and in the no-music condition half the time. The order of presentation of the two

conditions was reversed for half the subjects of each sex. Further, the two passages appeared equally

often. Previous studies of the effects of music on performance have yielded mixed results. Popular music

has been found adversely to affect reading-test performance of eighth graders and quantitative test

performance of eleventh graders (Williams, 1961). On the other hand, Colbert (1961) re- ported thatmusical stimulation improved performance of some college students on certain recall tasks, while Wolf

and Weiner (1972) found that rock music did not impair college students' performance on arithmetic

problems. In all of the research to date, the music has been arbitrarily selected by the experimenter. One

purpose of the present study was to examine the effects on reading comprehension of music chosen by the

subject rather than by the experimenter. A second purpose was to test Wolf and Weiner's (1972)

hypothesis that unfamiliar sounds are more distracting than are familiar ones. One pre- diction derived

from this hypothesis is that the more frequently individuals study to music, the less music should impair

their performance. Subjects were 16 male and 16 female undergraduate college students, rang- ing in age

from 19 to 22 yr. Each was tested individually. The two reading comprehension tests were taken from a

Law School Admissions Test preparation booklet. Each test was composed of one passage and five

questions based on the passage. The two passages and sets of questions were considered to be of equal

difficulty. Two points were given for each question answered correctly. Each subject was asked to bring a

preferred record album to the experi- mental session. Almost all subjects chose popular music. The

subject was instructed to read a passage for a maximum of 10 min. and then answer five questions based

on the passage without referring back to the text. A second passage then was administered in the same

fashion. One passage was read in quiet surroundings (no-music condition) and the other was read with the

record of preferred music playing at moderate volume (music condition). Each passage appeared in the

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music condition half the time and in the no-music condition half the time. The order of presentation of the

two conditions was reversed for half the subjects of each sex. Further, the two passages appeared equally

often within each combination of subjects' sex and order of condition. At the end of the experiment,

subjects were asked whether they studied or music frequently, occasionally, or never. The mean reading

comprehension score in the music condition for males was 6.9 and for females, 6.6. In the no-music

condition, mean scores for males and females were 6.6 and 8.6, respectively. These scores were analyzedby means of a 2 (Sex) X 2 (Music Condition) analysis of variance with repeated measures on the second

factor. Only the Sex X Music Condition interaction reached significance (F1,99 = 5.46, p < .05). Turkeys

HSD test for comparison of means indicated that females performed more poorly in the music condition

than in the no-music condition. Males performed equally well in the two conditions. Thus, listening to

music of one's choice interfered with the performance of females but not males. A possible reason for this

sex difference appears when the data concerning frequency of studying to music are examined. Among

females, two reported that they frequently studied to music, 4 said occasionally, and 10 reported never. Of

the male subjects, 5 reported frequently studying to music, 6 said occasionally, and 5 reported never.

Thus, females studied to music less often than did males. The distracting effect of music on the

performance of females but not of males therefore supports Wolf and Weiner's (1972) hypothesis that

unfamiliar sounds are more distracting than are familiar ones. This position is further supported by the

finding of a significant negative correlation for the entire sample between the frequency of studying to

music and the amount of performance decrement in the music condition.