*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on PsychCentral.
The findings of a new U.K. study challenge the popular view that music enhances creativity, and suggests it may in fact have the opposite effect. This proved to be the case even when the music boosted the listener’s mood.
Psychologists from the University of Central Lancashire and Lancaster University (England) and the University of Gävle (Sweden) investigated the impact of background music on performance by quizzing people with verbal insight problems that are believed to tap into creativity.
They discovered that background music “significantly impaired” the participants’ ability to complete tasks testing verbal creativity, but there was no effect for background library noise.
For example, the participants were presented with a set of three words (dress, dial, flower), with the requirement being to think of a single associated word (in this case “sun”) that can be combined to make a common word or phrase (sundress, sundial and sunflower).
The research team conducted three experiments involving verbal tasks in either a quiet environment or while exposed to:
- background music with foreign (unfamiliar) lyrics;
- instrumental music without lyrics;
- music with familiar lyrics.
“We found strong evidence of impaired performance when playing background music in comparison to quiet background conditions,” said researcher Dr. Neil McLatchie of Lancaster University.
Researchers suggest this may be due to the fact that music disrupts verbal working memory.
In the third scenario, exposure to music with familiar lyrics reduced creativity regardless of whether the music also boosted mood, induced a positive mood, was liked by the participants, or whether participants typically studied in the presence of music.
However, there was no significant difference in performance of the verbal tasks between the quiet and library noise conditions. The researchers say this is because library noise is a “steady state” environment which is not as disruptive.
Source: PsychCentral
https://psychcentral.com/news/2019/03/05/background-music-may-hamper-creativity/143297.html
Source: Home Word
