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Eduardo Giron

Professor Trishia Briones

ENGL 1302-277

4 May 2022

The Effects of Music on Studying

Introduction

The impact music could have on cognitive functions such as forming memories and the

ability to recall has been contested in the neurological community. Evidence such as a study

examining children learning their first words found that they use “properties in speech… both

within and at the word boundary,” and realized “music can enhance this process by providing

multiple cues that facilitate the identification of word boundaries,” providing evidence that music

assists by allowing the listeners to associate words with musical cues (Ferreri & Vega 168). In a

similar study, this time with adult subjects, researchers found when “exposed to a continuous

stream of trisyllabic pseudo-words (either spoken or sung) ... results showed participants learned

the words in the sung-matching boundaries condition,” providing further evidence that music can

impact cognitive functions, comparable to the experiment conducted with children (Schön, et al

981). Furthermore, another experiment in where participants were provided a list of either sung

or spoken words proved “participants did not learn word lists faster in either condition,” yet

when examined a week later, “recall… was superior among those who learned the sung list,”

meaning that even simple musical adjustments to how words are spoken can impact people’s

long-term retention rate (Ferreri & Vega 168). Unfortunately, there are conflicting reports of

experiments that speak of much, if any, possible cognitive improvements when regarding

background noises or purely instrumental tunes. This lines up with some results of the
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experiment in which the subject listened to a classical music playlist for a study session and

reported a three on the Helpfulness rating (meaning that the genre was “neutral/non-disrupting”

with studying). The purpose of this experiment will be to chronicle the impact various musical

genres could or could not have on a single subject tasked with studying. Additionally, there was

an attempt to see if the enjoyment of a genre, and familiarity with said genre, negatively or

positively impacted the main objective of the experiment (impact on studying).

Method

To conduct this experiment, the subject was provided a subscription to a music streaming

service (Spotify) to gather the various musical genres necessary for this experiment. Alongside

the streaming service, the subject was provided noise-canceling headphones to ensure no outside

noise interference. To further ensure no outside interference, the subject spent each

study/experiment session in a private room. Furthermore, the participant had already been

assigned textbook readings for other classes concurrently being taken (mainly nutrition and

pathophysiology), which allowed for plenty of time for the experiment to be conducted. Finally,

the subject was provided a journal with a rating system of one through five (hereby known as the

Helpfulness Rating (HR)) that described how different music genres would affect the subject’s

studying: One being very unhelpful/very distracting, two being unhelpful/distracting, three being

neutral/non-disturbing, four being helpful/improved concentration, and five being very

helpful/incredibly improved concentration. The subject was instructed to choose a Spotify

curated playlist of a genre that they would exclusively listen to for the duration of the study

session. The subject was to rate how they felt the curated playlist impacted their studying with

the provided rating scale at the end of each session for the day. Moreover, the subject was

provided with two more separate rating scales of one through five that 1. described how familiar
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the subject was with the chosen genre (hereby known as the Familiarness Rating (FR)) and 2.

their level of enjoyment with said genre for the duration of the experiment session (hereby

known as the Enjoyment Rating (ER)). These rating systems are similar to the previously

mentioned Helpfulness Rating system: one being very unfamiliar/hated, two being

unfamiliar/unenjoyable, three being neutral, four being familiar/enjoyable, and five being very

familiar/content. The experiment will take place for seven days, with the subject listening to one

of the six genres selected for the experiment each day. One of the experiment days will have the

subject listening to nothing, only silence. The following genres were selected for the experiment:

rock, rap, country, pop, classical, and electronic/electronic dance music (EDM). There exist

many sub-genres, meaning songs of various sub-genres were included in these playlists, allowing

for variety and for a low chance of repetition that could otherwise bore the subject. The subject

was not allowed to skip, rewind, or fast forward through songs for the duration of the

experiment.

Results

Overall, the majority of the test subject’s experiences were seemingly positive, with the

subject rating four of the six genres over at a three on at least two of the rating systems. The

experiment began with the country genre as the subject was adamant about “getting country out

of the way,” so that they can “have something to look forward to,” in regard to the remaining 5

genres and the day of silence (Giron 1). Based on the subject’s previously mentioned statements

on the topic of the country genre, it was too little surprise that they rated it a one on both the FR

and ER scales, stating “I do not enjoy this at all,” yet they did give it a 3 on the HR scale (Giron

1). Country was the main outlier on genres that included lyrics with the HR scale. Rap, pop, and

rock were all given a four on the HR scale, correlating with previous research, providing further
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evidence that music can positively affect cognitive functions such as memory formation or

retention. The classical genre garnered a four score on the HR scale, while the EDM score

received a one score on the HR scale. The subject remarked that the EDM genre was “very

upbeat and encouraged me to read faster, but after a while I realized I was simply reading the

words and not the actual information,” resulting in the lowest HR score of the entire experiment

(Giron 4). The subject scored rock and rap a five on the FR and ER scales, classical received a

four on the FR and ER scale, pop obtained a two on the FR and ER scales, and EDM secured a

three on the FR scale and a four on the ER scale. The day of silence did not require the FR scale;

however, it did receive a three on the HR and a one on the ER scale. Regarding the experiment

session with silence, the subject commented “in my usual studying outside of this experiment,

silence is typically only used when I need to review or proofread… boredom ensued throughout

most of today’s session,” leading to the very low score (of 1) on the ER scale (Giron 7). On the

opposite end, the genre the subject was most familiar with while studying was rock, “this session

went about as well as my usual studying goes,” leading to the high ratings given across the board

for this genre (Giron 2). Similarly scored, the subject spoke about the rap genre session as “songs

in this playlist were not meant to be listened to while studying (i.e., distracting),” yet scored it

the same as the rock genre (Giron 5). The subject was most interested in how the classical genre

would perform “after always hearing about how classical music is ‘the best’,”; after the

experiment session, “I can see why this is called ‘the best’, there really isn’t anything that

specific that can steal your attention from the material,” indicating that the classical genre could

be the least distracting (Giron 6). It should be noted that material covered/time spent on certain

experiment sessions were shorter than others due to the subject complaining about being
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subjected to those genres they scored low on the ER scale. Nevertheless, the subject still spent a

minimum of an hour on each experiment session

Conclusion

The results of the experiment seem to indicate that the genres that heavily incorporate

lyricism overall outperformed the genres that lack it, indicating results that agree with previous

research into the topic. The FR and ER scales did not seem to heavily impact the results of the

HR scale, as the HR score of the country genre would have been below a three if it had negative

effects. However, the fact that the rock and rap genre sessions scored the same HR, despite the

comment regarding rap music being distracting, could indicate that the subject believes rock

could have similar distracting factors that they failed to comment on. Alternatively, the subject

could have artificially boosted the HR scores for these genres given their previously mentioned

fondness for these two genres, as indicated from their FR scores (rap and rock). If we take these

possible score inflations into consideration, then the classical music session produced the highest

consistent rankings (4 on all three scales), contesting the claim that genres with lyricism

outperform those without it. Should a similar experiment be conducted in the future, the

researcher suggests including the length of each study session/how much time the subject spent

listening to each genre as that could have some impact on the rating given by the subject. In total,

the subject read, wrote notes about, and studied a total of 15 chapters from the combined reading

material graciously provided by the subject’s nutrition and pathophysiology classes throughout

the course of this experiment.

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Works Cited

Ferreri, Laura, and Laura Verga. “Benefits of Music on Verbal Learning and Memory:

How and When Does It Work?” Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal,

vol. 34, no. 2, University of California Press, 2016, pp. 167–182,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26417442. Accessed 7 February 2022.

Schön Daniele, et al. “Songs As an Aid for Language Acquisition.” Cognition, vol. 106,

no. 2, 2008, pp. 975–983., doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2007.03.005.