In a previous column about the stress of working in an “open”
office, I suggested that the popular practice of listening to
music with earbuds or headphones not only cuts down on
background noise but may also give employees a sense of control
over their aural environment. But does having a constant
soundtrack to your day also distract you from the task at hand?
That depends on the task. Research shows that under some
conditions, music actually improves our performance, while in
other situations music makes it worse — sometimes dangerously
so. Absorbing and remembering new information is best done with
the music off, suggests a 2010 study published in Applied
Cognitive Psychology. Adults aged 18 to 30 were asked to recall
a series of sounds presented in a particular order.
Participants’ performance suffered when music was played while
they carried out the task as compared to when they completed the
task in a quiet environment. Nick Perham, the British researcher
who conducted the study, notes that playing musi