Facilitation and Interference by

Background Music’
Leon K. Miller
Michael Schyb
University of Illinois at Chicago

Undergraduates performed a variety of standard cognitive

tasks: spatial, numerical, and verbal reasoning and reading,
either with no background music or with various types of

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music during performance. Performance on nonverbal tasks
was facilitated by background music, especially for females.
Slight interference appeared on the verbal tasks under some
conditions for females. Processes possibly mediating these
effects are discussed.

Background music has become an almost ubiquitous aspect

of contemporary living and, not surprisingly, a long history of
research has examined the effects of such music. Early studies
emphasized a variety of physiological responses to music, con­
trasting stimulating and soothing consequences of various types
of music (Diserens & Fine, 1939; Gatewood, 1921; Kerr, 1944).
More recently, researchers have considered the possible dele­
terious effects of music for a variety of cognitive tasks. The
picture that emerges suggests that either facilitation or inter­
ference from music may occur depending upon the task in­
volved. Interference for reading comprehension has frequently
been reported, particularly when the music is unfamiliar (Etaugh
& Michaels, 1975; Etaugh & Ptasnik, 1982; Fogelson, 1973;
Mulliken & Henk, 1985). Detrimental effects have also been
reported for paired associate learning (Schrable, 1968) and Stroop
interference tasks (Parents, 1976).
For tasks with a less central verbal component, background
music is apparently less disruptive. Wolfe (1983) reported no

Leon Miller, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University

of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois. Michael Schyb obtained a Masters of Health Science
degree and is now self-employed.
The authors would like to thank Adrian Barnes, Ballard Holdren, and Susan
Ware for their assistance. Authors’ address: Department of Psychology, Uni­
versity of Illinois at Chicago, Bon 4348, Chicago, IL 60680.
Vol. XXVI, No. 1, Spring, 1989 43

effects of familiar background music upon performance of math

problems (cf. also Norton, 1971). Colbert (1961) found that
music facilitated recognition of briefly flashed groups of random
letters. Facilitation by music has also been reported for tests of
figural, but not verbal fluency, as measured by the Torrence
tests of creativity (Norton, 1971), and for pictorial memory
(Stainback, Stainback, & Hallahan, 1973).
The characteristics distinguishing those tasks that show in­
terference versus facilitation remain unclear. Task complexity
has been suggested as an important mediator of music’s effects
(Henderson, Crews, & Barlow, 1945); to date, however, the

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evidence offers little support for this factor (Hilliard & Tolin,
1979; Zimmer & Brachulis, 1978).
As noted previously, reading tasks are usually negatively af­
fected, while tasks of a nonverbal nature are less affected or
are facilitated. Differential effects of music associated with a
verbal dimension might be expected from the perspective of­
fered by recent research in cognitive neuropsychology. Evi­
dence from both clinical (Marin. 1982; Milner, 1962) and nor­
mative experimental (Carmen, Lavy, Gordon, & Portnoy, 1975)
studies indicates cerebral activity associated with processing
music is asymmetrically distributed across the cerebral hemi­
spheres, with greater activity occurring in the right than in the
left hemisphere. Other dimensions of cognition are also cere­
brally differentiated; a variety of spatial skills are attributed to
right hemisphere functions, while tasks with a strong language
component are most often lateralized to the left hemisphere
(Bryden, 1982). Moreover, activation of one hemisphere is as­
sociated with reduced or inhibited activity in the other (Kins­
bourne, 1974). Thus, one might expect music to have varying
effects across tasks depending upon the congruence of its pro­
cessing focus and that of the other tasks. Tasks that have a right
hemisphere processing focus might benefit from the activation
provided by music, while those with a left hemisphere focus
would be negatively affected.
In the past, varying effects of music on different tasks have
been observed across studies. The present research was designed
to assess these effects directly by comparing performance on
both verbal and nonverbal tasks in a standard setting with dif­
ferent types of music. It was expected that the effects of music
would vary systematically with the nature of the task. For those
44 Journal of Music Therapy

tasks with a marked verbal component, interference would oc­

cur; facilitation would occur for nonverbal tasks.

Method
Subjects
Undergraduate students (N = 198) participated voluntarily
as part of an introductory psychology course requirement. Par­
ticipants were primarily in their freshman or sophomore years.
All subjects reported writing with the right hand.

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Stimulus Materials
Four tests comprised the task materials: three subtests from
the Differential Aptitude Test Battery (Bennett, Seashore, &
Wesman, 1959)—numerical ability, space relations, and verbal
reasoning-plus a reading comprehension test (Morgan & Deese,
1969, pp. 41-43). The numerical ability test required compu­
tation of simple arithmetic and algebra. The space relations test
required subjects to choose from among drawings of altered
and rotated forms the one that matched a standard, and the
verbal reasoning test asked subjects to complete verbal analogies
(e.g., Drink is to water as eat is to ). All had a multiple
choice answer format. The reading test required subjects to
read several informative paragraphs dealing with special topics
and to answer questions concerning facts presented in the para­
graphs.
Three different types of musical materials were assembled.
The classical selections included Symphonies 33 and 40 by Mo­
zart and a string octet by Mendelssohn. A popular vocal music
selection included several anthologies, “Heart Beat of the 70s”
and “Heart Beat of the 80s,” consisting of popular songs with
the original performers. The third selection consisted of con­
temporary popular instrumental (“disco”) music with no vocal
accompaniment.

Procedure
Subjects were tested in a large room in single sex groups of
10-15. All subjects in a given group were assigned to one of
four conditions: “quiet” or one of the three “music selection”
conditions described above. Subjects in each condition first filled
Vol. XXVI, No. 1. Spring, 1989 45

out a brief questionnaire and then were given the four tasks.
Across groups, the order in which tasks were administered was
counterbalanced by a Latin square procedure. Thus, a total of
16 groups completed the experiment, four for each condition.
Subjects were told they were going to take a series of four
timed tests and that starting and stopping times for each test
would be announced. They were asked to work as quickly and
efficiently as possible, although it was not necessary to complete
any test. Once the instructions were given, the subjects were
told to turn to the first task and begin. For subjects in the three

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music conditions, music was played for the remainder of the
session. The loudness level of the music measured at several
different locations in the room ranged from 45-50 dB. Instruc­
tions appropriate to each task were given at the beginning of
each subtest interval. Subjects were given 10 minutes for each
task once the instructions were given. In addition to the test
scores. selected background information (age, handedness, study
and music listening habits, and academic achievement in the
form of ACT scores) was available from the questionnaire.

Results
In a preliminary analysis, the four conditions were compared
on each of the demographic variables (age, ACT score, and
music listening habits) assessed in the questionnaire. None of
these analyses yielded significant results, indicating compara­
bility in group composition.
Corrected accuracy scores (correct - incorrect correct +
incorrect) were calculated for each of the four tasks for each
subject. Examination of order effects indicated that, across groups
and tests, the particular order in which tasks were administered
had no effect upon either individual task or total task perfor­
mance. Consequently, order of task administration was omitted
on subsequent analyses.
In the primary analysis, the corrected accuracy scores were
submitted to analysis of covariance with condition and gender
as between subjects variables, test scores as the within subjects
variable, and general academic achievement (ACT scores) as
the covariate. This analysis revealed, not surprisingly, general
differences in performance associated with the covariate [F(1,
189) = 23.62, p < .01], with higher scores occurring for those
46 Journal of Music Therapy

with higher levels of academic achievement. Main effects were

also found for condition [F(3, 189) = 3.90, p < .01] and test
[F(3, 570) = 38, p < .01]. The interpretation of these main
effects is qualified considerably by the presence of three inter­
actions, all involving the subtest factor. Subtest interacted with
both condition [F(9, 570) = 2.15, p < .03] and gender [F(3,570)
= 9.37, p < .01], and a three-way interaction occurred involving
condition, gender, and subtest [F(9,570) = 2.35, p < .02]. Given
these significant interactions, it seemed most appropriate to
assessthe effects of the various conditions separately by gender

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and test type. Since the comparison of primary interest was
performance with music relative to the quiet control condition,
this analysis used Dunn&t’s statistic for comparing a set of
means with a control (Winer, 1962). The mean scores used in
this analysis are presented in Figure 1. From an examination
of these means, it appears the effect of music was primarily
facilitative; however, the facilitative effect is restricted largely
to the females and the spatial and numerical subtests. In each
case, the effect of familiar popular music was to increase the
relative accuracy of responding in comparison to subjects re­
sponding under “quiet” conditions.
The facilitation by music for the less verbal tasks is in accord
with the study’s original hypotheses. However, the apparent
facilitation of reading performance for females by music, at
least in one music condition, is clearly contrary to expectation.
This result may reflect some particular characteristics of fe­
males’ responding on the reading test.
Tables l-4 contain the derived score components (mean and
standard error of correct and incorrect responses) for each of
the subtests and groups of the study. Vocal music generally
resulted in the fewest questions attempted for all groups and
subtests. For females, the effect for reading was particularly
marked, with the total attempted questions under the vocal
music conditions being only 60% that of the quiet condition.
The corrected accuracy score (correct - incorrect f correct
+ incorrect) was chosen because it takes overall rate of re­
sponding into account in calculating relative accuracy. Since
task format permitted wide variation in the number of questions
attempted, such an adjustment seemed necessary. If the derived
scoring has the intended effect, logically one should expect the
correlation between the derived score and the total score (right
Vol. XXVI, No. 1, Spring, 1989 47

Males
SC
ore
0.9 *
0.8 -

0.7 -

0.6 -

0.5 -

0.4 -

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0.3 -

0.2 -

0.1 -

O-
Spatial Numerical Verbal Reading

Females
SCor ‘e

0.9
*
0.8

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0 Spatial Numerical
Verbal Reading
FIGURE 1.
Mean adjusted correct scores as a function of condition, subtest and gender.
l Denotes significant difference from Quiet condition (p < .05).
48 Journal of Music Therapy

Table 1
Spatial Test Performance as aFunction ofCondition and Gender

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+ wrong) to be low or insignificant, while the correlation of
the derived score and the number correct should be relatively
high. Correlation coefficients among derived, total, and correct
only scores, separately by subtest and sex, indicated these ex­
pected correlations held for every case except reading scores
for females, where the derived score was negatively correlated
with the number correct and the total score. Thus, the apparent
facilitation found using the derived score in the primary analysis
actually reflects much less reading attempted under this con­
dition.

Discussion
As expected, the various tasks were differentially affected by
background music, although the magnitude of the effect de-

Table 2
Numerical Test Performance as a Function of Condition and Gender
Vol. XXVI, No. 1, Spring. 1989 49

TABLE 3
Verbal Test Performance
as a Functionof Condition and Gender

Condition
Quiet Classical Pop Vocal
M SE M SE M SE M SE
Males
Correct 20.1 1.5 18.3 1.3 17.8 1.5 18.2 1.0
Incorrect 7.9 1.2 7.3 .9 7.3 1.0 7.9 .9
Females
Correct 18.1 1.1 16.5 1.2 19.9 1.2 17.3 1.4

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Incorrect 8.3 1.1 11.2 1.5 6.8 .7 10.1 1.3

pended upon the sex of the subject. Facilitation occurred for

the spatial, and to a lesser extent the numerical tasks. For the
verbal analogies and reading tasks, however, the presence of
background music had little effect, although there was some
indication that it was associated with less efficient processing
for women.
The facilitation of spatial performance by background music
may reflect the consequences of selective right hemisphere
arousal. Assuming music primarily affects right hemisphere
arousal, enhanced performance for other tasks or processes me­
diated by the same hemisphere can occur. Differential effects
of musical stimuli for a variety of lateralized perceptual or
motor tasks mediated by the right hemisphere have been re­
ported previously, with either facilitation or interference oc-

Table 4
Reading Test Performance as a Function of Condition and Gender
50 Journal of Music Therapy

curring depending upon other factors (Gardner, Eagan, & Bran­

ski, 1973; Johnson & Kozma, 1977). Primary among the other
factors is the attentional effort required by the music itself. If
demands are considerable, the situation resembles a dual task
paradigm, where processing requirements may produce inter­
ference among tasks. When attentional demands are minimal,
increases in arousal associated with stimulation may increase
system capacity (Kahneman, 1973), thus facilitating perfor­
mance.
In the present experiment, several factors suggest that few

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attentional demands were made by the music. First, the music
was played at a relatively low level, which most likely prevented
some of the interference found with moderate or high levels of
sound (e.g., Wolfe, 1983). Second, subjects were not required
to attend to the music or report any of its contents. Finally,
most subjects (80%) reported at least occasionally listening to
music while studying, and the vast majority of these preferred
popular music of the sort heard during the test situation. Fa­
miliar music appears to have little effect upon reading (Etaugh
& Michaels, 1975). Taken together, these factors very likely
enhanced the probability of finding facilitation rather than in­
terference in the present study, particularly for popular music.²
The greater influence of music among women than among
men was unexpected. The two groups did not differ in their
tendency to listen to music while studying, according to self­
report. However, sex differences were found under the quiet
condition for those tasks showing the strongest effects of music.
Sex differences in spatial skills are frequently reported for tasks
such as that in the Differential Aptitude Test Battery (e.g.,
Hartlage, 1970; Nash, 1975). One interpretation of these dif­
ferences is that they reflect reduced or limited development of
right hemisphere functions responsible for spatial cognition. An
alternative view is that sex differences in spatial performance

² In a separate analysis, the subjects who reported never listening to music

while studying were compared to all others across conditions; in contrast to
Etaugh and Michaels (1975), no interaction between experimental group and
studying behaviors was found, although music listeners tended to do somewhat
better on the reading task under the music than under the quiet condition,
while the reverse was true for those who did not report studying to music.
Vol. XXVI, No. 1, Spring. 1989 51

indicate the differential use of an appropriate strategy or skill

rather than a difference in capacity (cf. Harris, 1978 for a
discussion of both positions). Inappropriate or nonoptimal pro­
cessing has, in turn, been tied to hypoarousal of those cortical
areas specialized for a given task (Levy, Heller, Banich, &
Burton, 1983).
Evidence supporting strategy effects in performance comes
from the malleability of the difference found. If this result
reflected some difference in spatial capability, the difference
should be relatively stable across manipulations that do not

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change the essential nature of the task. On the other hand,
varying patterns of performance across such manipulations may
indicate the variable engagement of task appropriate process­
ing. In the present instance, the sex difference in spatial task
performance was clearly variable, being more marked under
the quiet than the music conditions. The results therefore sup­
port the “use” rather than the “capacity” interpretation of
individual differences. Further, they suggest that background
music may provide a vehicle for the optimal arousal or en­
gagement of spatial skills.
It is questionable whether a similar argument can be made
for the differences found for the numerical subtest. As with the
spatial test, the numerical subtest of the DAT frequently yields
a sex difference under standard (“quiet”) conditions (Maccoby
& Jacklin, 1974). However, while evidence exists supporting a
right hemisphere focus for some numerical skills (e.g., Kimura,
1966), problems with simple arithmetic calculations or “acal­
culia” often have a left hemisphere focus (Lezak, 1976). Thus,
it is less clearly a candidate for hemispherically lateralized en­
hancement of the sort hypothesized for the spatial tasks. Possibly
both spatial and numerical task performance for women is
further affected by task anxiety, given usually lower levels of
performance for such tasks. If this is the case, the presence of
music may have moderated anxiety, leading to more proficient
performance for numerical as well as spatial tasks. However,
Colbert (1961) reported that music facilitated nonverbal task
performance equally for high and low test anxiety subjects.
Further, Smith and Morris (1976,1977) found that, while music
did reduce anxiety, little improvement resulted on structured
verbal academic tasks.
52 Journal of Music Therapy

Clinically, results of the present study have several impli­

cations. First, they suggest that selective enhancement of non­
verbal processing occurs when music is present. Thus, when
therapeutic interventions have a strong nonverbal component
(e.g., play therapy, Axline, 1969 or art therapy, Wadeson, 1982),
such nonverbal processing may be facilitated by music. Second,
certain clinical syndromes suggest hemispherically lateralized
deficiencies in arousal (Tucker, 1981). For example, the pres­
ence of depression is associated with lower levels of performance
on nonverbal but not verbal subtests of standard cognitive bat­

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teries (Brumback, 1985). The present results suggest the use of
music as a means of facilitating the return of performance to
normative levels. There is no reason, of course, why music
cannot have both the consequence of reducing task inappro­
priate arousal such as anxiety and increasing task appropriate
arousal. The separation of these contributions to performance
by background music awaits further research.

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