Your body may move to the music on the dance floor, but how does your brain function when listening to tunes while you work?
A lot of people swear one way or another — electronic music may speed up the pace of typing for some, while others just find it distracting. In fact, the question of whether music helps you get your work done or hinders you may be highly individualistic.
However, new research shows that certain types of upbeat, groovy music without lyrics may improve people’s moods while speeding up their ability to complete tasks.
“We think people’s mood improves, and that allows them to work faster,” says Pablo Ripollés, a cognitive neuroscientist at New York University.
Studying Music and Workflow
In a study published recently in PLOS One, Ripollés and his colleagues recruited 200 volunteers and split them into four groups, each listening to a different type of sound for 10-minute stretches. They then asked each participant how they felt and had them complete a task that required their full attention and concentration to see whether there were any differences in their performance.
One of these sounds was workflow music produced by Spiritune called “Anxious-to-Energized;” one was just a recording of office white noise; one was a mixture of popular rock, pop, and rap; and the final was a “deep focus” playlist pulled from Spotify.
Read More: This Is Your Brain on Music
Improving Mood and Efficiency
The tests showed that no one group was more accurate at completing the task — changes in music didn’t seem to affect ability, at least on average. But the people who listened to the workflow music did finish the task a little faster on average than those who listened to other sounds.
Ripollés says that this is likely because the mood of these people also improved while listening to the workflow music.
“If you look at the changes in mood before and after listening to music, the only ones who improved their mood were the ones listening to workflow music,” he says. “The better their mood was, the faster they were at the task.”
Personal Taste and Workflow
It’s more difficult to say exactly why the workflow music improved their efficiency, but Ripollés has a couple of theories. People didn’t like all the four types of sounds equally, for example. Most participants reported not liking the office white noise track.
Meanwhile, some people liked the playlist based on top Billboard hits, but others didn’t. The latter likely came down to personal taste — people who liked rap wouldn’t necessarily like rock or pop, for example.
Most respondents liked the “deep focus” Spotify playlist, which basically consisted of neutral ambient sound type tracks without lyrics. The trouble was, Ripollés says, it wasn’t groovy.
The Spiritune workflow music also has no lyrics, but blends elements of funk. “It makes people want to move,” Ripollés says.
The inspiration to dance, or move, may be an important factor that goes further than just inducing the right kind of mood.
“In order for music to improve our cognition, it has to both improve our mood but also increase our arousal levels,” Ripollés says, adding that arousal refers to the way music awakens and energizes people.
These factors may help keep people stimulated, which helps them focus on their work, he says.
Read More: Exploring the Effects of Music on Creativity
How People Can Respond to Music
Ripollés says that while this test seemed to show that Spiritunes’ music track may help in general, a lot of individual variation is likely. For example, it’s hard to gauge the effect that rock, pop, or rap music may have from the Billboard list because tastes differ among listeners. And not all pop music is created equal. Some may be sadder in tone while other tracks are groovier or more upbeat.
Efficiency isn’t the only factor important for people at work, either. Some jobs require creativity, which opens a whole new kind of discussion about what music may work best.
Ripollés just hopes that results like the ones his team got will help people make better choices on their playlist when at work.
“When people want to use music to focus, they should think for a little bit about which kind of music is really going to help them,” he says.
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Joshua Rapp Learn is an award-winning D.C.-based science writer. An expat Albertan, he contributes to a number of science publications like National Geographic, The New York Times, The Guardian, New Scientist, Hakai, and others.
