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 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 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 that musical 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

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 analyzed by 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.