Concentration is one of the most important factors in determining the efficiency of learning. The efficiency of learning is highly dependent on the mental state that the person is in. When the person is highly focused, a person can understand and memorise many complicated concepts in a short period of time, when s/he is not, the person cannot learn as effectively. A Stanford University research team on 2007 has found that music has profound impact on concentration and improves brain's ability to sustain attention.
Helps keep attention
It turns out that our brain has two attention systems: a conscious one and an unconscious one. The conscious one is responsible for directing our focus towards the task at hand while the unconscious system works through shifting our attention toward anything else that our senses pick up unconsciously. And the latter system operates faster so when someone hears a noise when alone at home; he's paying attention to it long before he's able to work out what it might have been. Also, the unconscious system doesn't turn off while our conscious system is working in full power to keep our attention intact which makes it easier to stray from the actual task at hand. When someone's listening to music while working on something else, the unconscious part of our attention system does not get to bother the conscious parts by picking up those distractions eventually boosting attention.
Prepares the brain for heavy working
Music elevates mood. It takes us to a relaxed state of mind that is essential to get into a focused studying session. Listening to music has been shown to cause the release of dopamine, giving out pleasurable, rewarding experience which can relax an individual. It sets one's brain in an immersive state that can be helpful in concentrating on the task at hand.
Results are not always positive
However, various researches have shown adverse effects of music on learning as well.
Researchers from the applied psychology department of Cardiff Metropolitan University had set out to see if music affects learning positively or not. They assigned the students into one of four categories: the first group revised in quiet, the second while listening to lyrical music that they liked, the third while listening to lyrical music that they did not like, and the fourth while listening to instrumentals.
What they found was students who revised in quiet did more than 60% better in an exam than their peers who reviewed while listening to music that had lyrics.Students who revised while listening to music without lyrics did better than those who had revised to music with lyrics.This results in sum suggests that a calm environment works better while studying than a musical background when people are trying to recall from memory.
Effects are dependent on numerous variables
Another team of researchers from Japan found that different types of music has varied impacts on different tasks on a conference paper written in 2014. As a result, it can't be ascertained that any music will boost learning prowess for anyone. It can be seen that music with and without lyrics has different effects on an individual's study. Similarly, there are other variables as well that is attached to it that determines whether music will be helpful for research or not such as the genre and intensity of the music, individual's personality, the type of study etc.
For example, for tasks that are repetitive and require low mental effort, primarily works because individuals know how to do it already and won't have to brainstorm to get started such as statistics, mathematics, accounting, programming etc., high energy music can be beneficial to get into the flow state. Lyrical music works fine with these types of works.
On the other hand, when working on something unfamiliar that require a lot of thinking to figure out, or while doing reading or writing, very calm music such as classical or silence is more preferable. The music has to be instrumental as well in this situation otherwise the lyrics will pull the attention away.Personality can play a prominent role too in performance with or without music, with introverts more likely to perform worse than extroverts in the presence of music. Similarly, people who are bad at multitasking have also been found to perform worse when listening to music.
Listening to music might not improve long term cognitive abilities butit can still regulate an individual's mood and help one relax to enter the state of study. With similar reasoning, even though music can sometimes be less useful while recalling old information, the rise in positive emotions and concentrationshall be very helpful in many situations.The bottom line is that music can be supportive to learning depending on how effectively and purposefully one's using it.
The writer is a first-year student of BBA programme at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka. He can be reached at
