Given the extreme variation in musical preferences from person to person, exposing your workforce or classroom to a single type of music would obviously end up with mixed results. Music you like increases focus, while music you don’t impedes it. While the nature and style of the music can cause specific responses in the brain (funky music compels you to dance, sad music makes you melancholy, motivational music makes you want to keep fit), some studies suggest that it really is down to personal preference. This may seem obvious: someone listening to classical music while they work wouldn’t seem at all unusual, but if they were listening to thrash metal it would be thought very strange indeed. It seems clear that the type of noise, or music, is important. But views on the effectiveness of this approach are mixed at best. A lot of companies have tried using pink noise (pdf) – a less invasive version of white noise – broadcasting it around the workplace to reduce distractions and boost productivity.
However, it’s not just a matter of providing any old background noise to keep distractions at bay. It’s much like giving small children a new toy to play with while you’re trying to get some work done without them disturbing you. It provides non-invasive noise and pleasurable feelings, to effectively neutralise the unconscious attention system’s ability to distract us. Music is a very useful tool in such situations. Have you ever worked in an open-plan office and been working on a very important task, only to be driven slowly mad by a co-worker constantly sniffing, or sipping their coffee, or clipping their nails? Something quite innocuous suddenly becomes much more infuriating when you’re trying to work on something your brain doesn’t necessarily enjoy. Some people argue that one of the best music genres for concentration is the video game soundtrack
This means that a distraction doesn’t need to be as stimulating to divert your attention on to something else. And if what we’re doing is unpleasant or dull – so you’re already having to force your attention to stay fixed on it – the unconscious attention system is even more potent. The trouble is, while our conscious attention is focused on the task in hand, the unconscious attention system doesn’t shut down it’s still very much online, scanning for anything important in your peripheral senses. So when you hear a noise when you’re alone at home, you’re paying attention to it long before you’re able to work out what it might have been. The unconscious one is simpler, more fundamental, and linked to emotional processing rather than higher reasoning. We seem to have two attention systems: a conscious one that enables us to direct our focus towards things we know we want to concentrate on and an unconscious one that shifts attention towards anything our senses pick up that might be significant. Why would music help us concentrate, though? One argument is to do with attention.įor all its amazing abilities, the brain hasn’t really evolved to take in abstract information or spend prolonged periods thinking about one thing. Most modern pop falls somewhere within this range, no doubt. The middle ground ( funk music like James Brown is what the experimenters reference most) hits the sweet spot between predictable and chaotic, for which the brain has a strong preference. In contrast, chaotic and unpredictable music, like free jazz, has high levels of syncopation, can be extremely off-putting and rarely, if ever, entices people to dance. They have low levels of syncopation and certainly don’t make you want to dance.
Simple, monotonous beats, like listening to a metronome, aren’t really entertaining.
Your own experience will probably back this up.
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