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Running head: THE EFFECT OF MUSIC ON READING COMPREHENSION

The Effect of Classical Music, Nature Sound and No Sound on Reading Comprehension

Wan Nada Marhamah binti Wan Abd Razak (1223866)

PSYC 3070 Experimental Psychology (Section 4)

Dr. Harris Shah Abd Hamid

Semester 2, 2015/2016

Department of Psychology

International Islamic University Malaysia

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Abstract

The effect of music on cognitive task generally, reading comprehension particularly were studied

vastly among the researches. Based on the past studies, classical music and no sound gave good

impacts on reading comprehension. In addition, nature sound also was reported can assist ones

cognitive task performance. Hence, this study aims to investigate the best conditions i.e. classical

music, nature sound and no sound, that can assist reading comprehension. 54 undergraduate

university students comprised of 37 females and 17 males were selected to undergone the

experiment, where they were divided into three mentioned conditions. The participant was asked

to listen to the music individually while answering the reading comprehension test. The result

showed that the three conditions give no effects on reading comprehension. The apparent

limitation of this study is the high number female participants compared to male, that might

influence the result of this study.

Keywords: reading comprehension, background music

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The Effect of Classical Music, Nature Sound and No Sound on Reading Comprehension

Music gives significant effects on many cognitive tasks like, mathematical task (Maas,

2013), spatial reasoning (Castillo et. al, 2014) and memory recalling (Konantz, 2012). However,

the effects of music on another cognitive task which is reading comprehension, are different across

studies.

Reading comprehension can be defined as an orchestration of the following four

processes, navigating textual elements, including written language, design features, and visual

images (p. 193, Serafini, 2012). There are many elements that can influence either enhancing or

reducing the reading comprehension such as, reading while texting (Fox, Rosen, & Crawford,

2009), reading while watching television (Ylias & Heaven, 2003), reading aloud the reading

materials (Oueini, Bahous, & Nabhani, 2008) and reading while listening to music. According to

Lesiuk (2005), music can enhance ones work performance as it induced positive affect on oneself,

whereby, Zimmer and Brachulis-Raymond (1978) reported that music would not divert ones

attention from ones reading. In fact, people generally, students particularly, preferred reading

while listening to music (Patton, Stinard & Routh, 1983; Anderson & Fuller, 2010).

Listening to music might affect reading comprehension whereby it may reduce or enhance

it. According to Thompson, Schellenberg, and Letnic (2011), fast tempo and high-level intensity

of background music would disrupt reading comprehension where Chou (2010) reported that the

high level of music intensity most likely will need higher concentration to comprehend what one

is reading. Chou introduced the theory of attention drainage effect, the distraction from the music

unconsciously drained a person from completing the main cognitive task, in this context reading.

On the other hand, the lyrical or even non lyrical types of music were detrimental towards reading

comprehension (Anderson & Fuller, 2010; Kasiri, 2015). Ones preferred music regardless lyrical
THE EFFECT OF MUSIC ON READING COMPREHENSION 4

or non-lyrical was also reported to give a detrimental effect on reading comprehension (Mcdonald,

2013; Perham, & Currie, 2014).

There were also several studies discusses on other aspects like cognitive abilities (Harmon,

Pelosi, Pickwick & Troester, 2008) and personality i.e introversion and extraversion played role

onto the effect of music on reading comprehension (Daoussis,& McKelvie, 1986; Ylias, & Heaven,

2003; Mcdonald, 2013). Another aspect that was highlighted in past studies were the genre of the

music will give different effects on reading comprehension, like jazz (Freeburne & Fleischer,

1952), rock (Daoussis,& McKelvie, 1986), pop (Anderson & Fuller, 2010) hip hop (Chou, 2010),

instrumental (Fogelson,1973; Thompson, Schellenberg, & Letnic, 2011) and dubstep (Alexander,

Firouzbakht, Glennon & Lang, 2012) were reported to either gave detrimental effects or no notable

effects on reading comprehension.

However, the classical genre gave contrast effects on reading comprehension, where

several studies indicated that participants that do the reading while listening classical music had

the highest scores in reading comprehension test compared to other genres (Freeburne & Fleischer,

1952; Harmon, Pelosi, Pickwick & Troester, 2008; Chou, 2010; Rashidi & Faham, 2011;

Alexander, Firouzbakht, Glennon & Lang, 2012). Moreover, some studies claimed that classical

genre not only not decrease the reading comprehension yet enhancing it (Silor, 2012; Miller, 2014).

This phenomenon can be explained as classical music was reported in a couple of studies, helping

the development of new neural-pathway in the brain that related to completing a cognitive task

(Geethanjali, Adalarasu, & Rajsekaran, 2012; Kalinowska, Kuakowska, Kuak, & Okurowska-

Zawada, 2013).

Other than classical genre, silence or no music in the background while reading also was

reported making the participants comprehend more of what they were reading (Harmon, Pelosi,
THE EFFECT OF MUSIC ON READING COMPREHENSION 5

Pickwick & Troester, 2008; Chou, 2010; Thompson, Schellenberg, & Letnic, 2011; Mcdonald,

2013; Miller, 2014). On the different page, nature sounds were also found to be helpful in

enhancing cognitive task one is doing, albeit, the cognitive task here was not reading task but

arithmetic tasks because the nature sound aid recovery from sympathetic activation in the brain

caused by completing cognitive task (Alvarsson, Wiens & Nilsson, 2010). However, there were

lacking of study of on the effects of nature sounds on reading comprehension.

Hence, this study aims to find the best condition for efficient reading, either classical,

nature sound or no sound in the background while one is reading. This is very vital, as this study

might help the students generally, university students particularly, to study or read their reading

materials more effectively, as they will know the condition of the room itself might help their

reading comprehension. This study also might be beneficial for bookstore owners and library

employee to know which music must be played in the background to help the people have a better

understanding of what they are reading.

This present study hypothesized that nature sound is the best condition for an efficient

reading. As the background music condition is conceptually defined as music without words that

is played while people learn and work independently and in groups (p. 2, White, 2007). This

present study operationally defined background music condition to three, classical music, Mozarts

Sonata K. 448 based on a study conducted by Jausovec, Jausovec and Gerlic (2007) that claimed

this symphony activated cognitive task-relevant brain areas, secondly, the nature sound, the sound

of waterfall and birds chirping adopted from a study by Alvarsson, Wiens and Nilsson in 2010

that reported water and birds sound made the brain returned to its calm state and the last condition

is the no music condition. On the different note, reading comprehension is operationally defined
THE EFFECT OF MUSIC ON READING COMPREHENSION 6

as the total test scores for reading comprehension test that was adopted from the study by Harmon,

Troester, Pickwick and Pelosi in 2008.

Method

Participants

A total of 54 undergraduate university students aged between 20 to 26 with 37 females and

17 males (M= 22.5, SD= 1.45) were selected through purposive sampling in which the main

criterion was English must be the participants first or second language. This must be done, in

order to avoid the invalidity of the test that was used to measure reading comprehension because

it is in English.

Materials

There are five materials used in this experiment, informed consent, the reading

comprehension test, headphone, laptop and stopwatch. The informed consent includes with the

questions of the specific genres the participants preferred in order to avoid giving them the music

that they preferred as it may affect the reliability of the result. On the other hand, this experiment

used a reading comprehension test consisted of 14 questions, with two passages and was adopted

from a study conducted by Harmon, Troester, Pickwick and Pelosi in 2008.

A headphone was used for the participants as the music was played individually and a

laptop also used to play the music files, which are the nature music, consisted of the sound of

waterfall with bird chirping (Alvarsson, Wiens & Nilsson, 2010) and classical music, Mozarts

Sonata K.448 (Jausovec, Jausovec & Gerlic, 2007). All the music files were standardized to 65-70

dB (Kumar, Mathew, Alexander & Kiran, 2009), using an application named Physics Toolbox

prior the experiment in order to ensure the volume and loudness of the music are safe for the
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participants hearing and at the same time ensuring every participant was listening to the same

level of loudness of the music files. A stopwatch was used to make sure the accuracy of time given

to every participant.

Research design

This experiment used between subject design, for the different participants were used in

different conditions but all of the participants have one similar characteristic which is fluent in

English. There are three conditions, classical, nature sound and no sound, each contained 16

participants respectively.

Procedures and data analysis

Before the experiment was carried out, a pilot test was conducted on 15 people to test the

duration of time of the reading comprehension test, the mean of the time taken was 14 minutes,

therefore the time used for this experiment was rounded off to 15 minutes. This experiment was

conducted individually to control any outside sound or noise that may affect the result of this

experiment.

Before the experiment started the experimenter gave the informed consent, in order to get

the consent and the participants preferred music as well. There are three conditions, with classical

music, nature sound and no sound. Based on the answer the participants had given, they would be

placed in the condition which was not their preferred music.

After giving the informed consent, the participants were given the reading comprehension

test, and they have 15 minutes to answer them. They will listen to the music and simultaneously

answering the test. On the last five minutes, the participants were reminded the time left, hence

they can speed up finishing up the paper. After the test, participants were debriefed of the main
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objectives of this experiment and tokens of appreciation were given. All of the test were scored

manually and keyed in into SPSS. The data later were analyzed using one-way ANOVA.

Results

The mean for the total reading comprehension performance is M = 11.5, SD = 1.61. Based

on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, p= 0.038, indicating that the data is not normally distributed. A

one-way between subjects ANOVA test was used to determine which condition out of three

conditions i.e. classical, nature sound and no sound is the best efficient reading condition. There

was no significant difference in term of the conditions and the reading comprehension performance

at p > 0.05 as F (2, 51) = 0.992, p = 0.378. The mean value of the reading comprehension test

scores (out of possible 14 maximum points) while listening to classical music was 11.22, while

listening to nature sound was 11.94 and while with no sound was 11.39. Nature sound condition

showed the highest mean scores compared to the other two conditions. However, since p < 0.05,

the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternate hypothesis is accepted.

Discussion

This present study was conducted to find the best condition i.e. classical music, nature

sound and no sound in the background, for an efficient reading that helps with the reading

comprehension. However, there were no significant difference between those three conditions on

the reading comprehension. This present study predicted that nature sound would be the best

reading condition for Alvarsson, Wiens and Nilsson (2010) mentioned that nature sound can repair

the neural-pathway caused by the sympathetic activation in the brain that was caused by

completing a cognitive task. Although the mean of the nature sound (M= 11.94, SD= 1.349) is the

highest followed by no sound condition (M= 11.39, SD = 1.720) and lastly, classical music (M=
THE EFFECT OF MUSIC ON READING COMPREHENSION 9

11.22, SD= 1.734), however, since p = 0.378, at p > 0.05, the result is not significant. A possible

explanation for this result is that those conditions might be fallen under the same category of its

effects on reading comprehension as all of those conditions are giving the calming effects on the

brain (Alvarsson, Wiens & Nilsson, 2010; Alexander, Firouzbakht, Glennon & Lang, 2012; Miller,

2014).

Another reason might be because of the presentation of the music itself for the classical

music and nature sound used in this experiment are recorded audio, as in accordance to Bailey

(1983), recorded music and live music will give different effects to ones physiological and

psychological reaction. Thus, the effect of live classical music and being there beside the waterfall

and hearing them in actual context, might give different result on ones reading comprehension

compared to only listening to the recorded audio.

Reading comprehension is a complex process, whereby, the emotions of the participants

might influence their reading comprehension, as the participants might be in different state of

emotions while taking the experiment. Where in accordance to Ghabanchi (2014) emotions can

influence ones reading comprehension as emotion might affect the concentration given to the

reading material. According to Gygax, Tapiero and Carruzzo (2007) happy emotions might assist

ones reading comprehension and sad emotion might be detrimental towards it.

Another possible reason for this result, this experiment only focusing on participants aged

20 to 26, where a study conducted by Maxon, and Hochberg (1982) that claimed psychoacoustic

behavior, which is the psychological and physiological reaction towards any sound will be

deteriorating with age gradually. Hence, interested future researchers might have to take into

account of the age, for instance, using the same age for all participants. As Maxon and Hochberg

claimed older adults can discriminate the attention towards the sound from the task they did
THE EFFECT OF MUSIC ON READING COMPREHENSION 10

compare to younger adults where in this context, the younger adults might have different attention

span compared to the older ones on finishing the reading materials (McClelland et. al, 2013).

One of the limitation of the study is the high number of female participants compared to

male participants as gender might becoming an aspect that can affect reading comprehension

scores. Another limitation might be caused by the quality of the headphone, high-quality

headphone might transfer the music better, compared to the ordinary headphone used in this

experiment. Hence, interested researchers may investigate the relationship of genders with the

effects of background music on reading comprehension, to see whether or not gender played a role

in determining the effects of music, i.e. classical music, nature sound and no sound, towards

reading comprehension.

Although the outcome of this experiment is not significant, further researches should tackle

on this topic as the best condition for efficient reading may give a huge benefit towards the

educational settings. For students who are easily distracted while reading or having a hard time to

comprehend learning materials would have benefitted tremendously as the condition of a room

itself can aid the students reading comprehension.

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