The Effects of Auditory Distraction on Reading Comprehension Performance

The effects of auditory distraction on reading comprehension performance is one the widely researched topics in psychology, based on the existence of rich literature on the same. In particular, music has been a key focus in most studies. Music is one of the aspects of the human culture that has been in existence for many centuries (Salamé & Alan, 1989). Used widely as a source of entertainment, most psychologists have become interested in music as an area of study because of the discovery of its influence on human development, especially the brain. Despite the controversies arising from past studies, studying while listening to music can distract students to comprehend and learn.

According to Flowers and O’Neill (2005), most students prefer reading while listening to music. Although some psychologists have put forth an argument that listening to music while studying aids the performance of the student, the same does not apply to all the students, but a section of them. As Salamé and Alan (1989) point out, music can affect learning music because of the intricacy of the music that an individual is listening to. Students who read passages with low data-load music achieves considerably better as compared to those who read in the presence of high data-load background music. The stimulation level produced by the music may have an impact on the level of performance. Moreover, high information-load music might produce anxiety and tension, which affects the performance of compound tasks. On the same note, Ee Wen and Michihiko (2005) point out that short-term memory characterizes an integral constituent of reading comprehension. As a result, plentiful of investigations on the effects of music on cognitive performance have been steered since the mid-20th century, indicating that depending on features of sounds and tasks, music of moderate to low intensity might in fact induce substantial damages in performance (Ee Wen & Michihiko, 2005). Children are particularly at risk to damaging effects of environmental noise, as mental tasks are less automatized hence more disposed to distraction. Psychoacoustic investigations have steadily shown that the kids’ speech acuity is more compromised than adults’ by disapproving listening conditions (Cauchard, Cane & Weger, 2012).

Other studies have focused on the impact of music on the performance of the workforce and related the same to the performance of students studying while listening to music. As Mistry (2015) argues, introducing music into the workstation is linked with increase worker morale, and as a result, fewer absentees and a reduction in employee turnover has been realized. Nevertheless, other studies propose that music that is lovely to the ear, like most of the key music, essentially makes time appear to pass more sluggishly. Some of these inconsistent findings may be as a result of the variances in the task being quantified, and not determining the central personality trait dissimilarities of the participants. Flowers and O’Neill (2005) postulated that music moderates the tension and dullness that are vastly linked to routine work, but functions as a distract for compound mental work. From the study, it is evident that music played in between break periods of intense mental activities have no impact on performance. Correspondingly, Ee Wen and Michihiko (2005) established that music had no impact on the way how individuals observed tasks, be they compound or simple. It has been established that when learning in a library, loners are suggestively more expected to select a place to work further away from the activity of some areas, whereas the extraverts were more engrossed to the latter as their workstation. This offers further proof regarding the regulation of stimulation differences among extraverts as well as introverts. Noise research encompassing cognitive as well as vigilant task performance is a common phenomenon. Earlier studies have proven the adverse impacts of acute as well as continuous auditory distraction such as music on attention, vigilance, reading shortfalls and skill, worker concentration, in addition to cognitive processing. Noise lessens performance in a task that entail the detection of recurrent numbers. Moreover, music has also slowed down performance in the course of an estimation task (Salamé & Alan, 1989). Noise amplifies the frequency of enormously inaccurate estimates.

Music stimulates several sections of the brain, making it an active mood-altering or therapeutic tool. During the course of listening to music, the brain is majorly engrossed in the music. This implies that it will become more difficult to concentrate on something else since most of the attention is directed towards the music. This forms the basis of the argument that listening to music has a destructive impact on reading comprehension, for the reason that the central point of focus is on the music rather than the passage being read (Mayfield & Moss, 1989). Findings propose that variations in tempo can have vivid implications when it comes to reading comprehension, even though mostly when the music is fairly loud. The variation in the beat and tempo of the song is expected to distract the learner since the brain will adjust as changes occur in the song and consequently focus on that. In the event that the song is stable and no major changes occur on the beat, more concentration will be on the material being read other than the song. Nevertheless, when the song becomes catchy and up paced, an individual is usually lured to sing with it, hence getting distracted (Freeburne & Fleischer, 1952).

In the day-to-day life, cognitive tasks are regularly performed with task-irrelevant music at the background. For instance, the majority of students pay attention to music with the intention of alleviating the emotive effects of anxiety and stress when involved in compound cognitive processing, for example studying for an exam, carrying out homework assignments, or during writing and reading. This routine is frequent that it would be helpful for college scholars to comprehend the role played by music as far as cognitive performance is concerned. Furnham and Bradley (1997) assert that studies on the impacts of music in comprehension performance is excellently documented, but the same studies have revealed vague evidence on this issue. In studies steered to study the impacts of musical distraction on mental task performance, the results have established the idea of music, refining cognitive performance, but there exists a variety of research that dispute those results. Studies show that music is distractive for individuals performing mental tasks such as reading and comprehension performances (Furnham & Strbac, 2002).

Studies relating noise as a disruption have revealed the same vague results concerning their impact on cognitive performance as studies concerning background music. Mayfield and Moss (1989) carried out a study that established the consequence of distracters, particularly background music, on cognitive performance for extroverts and introverts. The capacity to identify speech under the circumstances of noise or noise joined with reverberation advances up to the teenage years. Compared to studies of the impacts of noise at learning institutes, there have been numerous surveys of noise and audibility, and surveys into the manner in which the audibility of classrooms may be enhanced. Anxiety regarding the impacts of noise on teenagers’ learning, and how they can be alleviated, is mirrored in current work to mend standards for classroom auditory range. The researchers posited that performance, when it comes to both extroverts and introverts, would be worse when individuals are presented with distraction from music than it would be the case in silence (Mayfield & Moss, 1989).

Specifically, when it comes to all the mental tasks, performance might be diminished when background noise exists, advance with only circumstantial music, and be ideal in silence. The findings reinforced their predictions and exhibited that mental performance in quietness was better as compared to performance with contextual music, which is also better than performance in the presence of background music (Salamé &Alan, 1989). The outcomes also confirmed that, generally, performance in the stillness was best when likened to the performance in circumstantial noise and music. Through study with children of different ages, it has been revealed that a kids’ comprehension of speech in reverberation and noise does not resemble that of the adult level up to the late adolescent years. Prior to this time, the younger the kid the more the harmful effect of reverberation and noise, with kids under the age of 13 years being mostly susceptible (Cauchard et al., 2012).

It is evident that trying to multitask implies that one is not fully dedicated in anything. Loud, fast music deters reading comprehension. In exploring the impacts of environmental noise on kids, a wide variety of accomplishments and performance features have been pondered. These consist of attention, literacy, mathematics, and memory. Tasks that encompass language, for instance, reading, as well as those that have great cognitive task demands involving responsiveness, problem solving as well as memory seem to be those most impacted by contact to noise even if such impacts are not constantly evident (Salamé &Alan, 1989). The music disturbs rather than makes the studier more concentrated. Both extroverted and introverted undergraduate students achieve worse on a reading conception test when loud and fast music such as pop music is played. Music may damage cognitive capabilities in these situations because if a person trying to learn things in order, one may get confused by the shifting notes and words. Even though other investigations have found several benefits to listening to music prior to accomplishing a task, the writers note that this fresh research offers a more convincing scenario, listening to music while performing the expected task (Mistry, 2015).

The impact music has on studying relies to some notch on the student since learning styles as well as capabilities vary. While several learners are auditory students and may be pacified by music, some learn contrarily and consequently the effect of the music may as well be different. Research does propose, nevertheless, that any depraved effects of hearing music while learning can be prompt, prompting problems with mood, memory in addition to other responses. Music has the ability trigger stimulation or lower it with regard to the sort of music listened to. Quite a few students study while listening to music (Salamé and Alan, 1989). Music can influence our tempers as well as our capacity to pay attention depending on how frequently we pay attention to music as well as the kind of person we have. A key effect of poor acoustics and noise during reading is the decline in speech intelligibility. If students are not able to comprehend the teacher, it implies that the key function of a classroom in offering a setting that facilitates information transfer from teacher to learner is compromised. Furthermore, it is imperative in both social interaction and learning, that learners are able to listen to then comprehend their peers at school (Henderson, Crews, & Barlow 1945).

Based on the above discussion, there remains substantial interest in the manner in which background sounds can influence a person’s performance on numerous mental as well as work tasks. It seems that the overall impacts of continuing music exposure among the students are deficits in insistent attention. Furthermore, visual attention, poorer speech perception and auditory discrimination are connected to auditory distractions. As a result, a learner develops lesser memory for roles that call for high processing strains of semantic material in addition to poorer reading capacity as well as school performance when it comes to national standardized exams.

Method

Participants

The participants selected for the study were a total of 66 students consisting of (N =15) male and (N = 51) female undergraduate psychology students recently enrolled at the California State University Northridge in the spring of 2016. The voluntary enrollment by the students to participate in the study earned them credit in their introductory Psychology course. The participants selected for the study ranged in age between 18 to 24 years, and they were mainly Spanics and some blacks, white and Asians Notably, all selected participants for the study reported having both good sight and hearing with all participants with corrective lenses or contact lenses being allowed to participate in the study.

Design

The study used the between subjects method to effectively measure and determine whether or not auditory distractions negatively influence the reading comprehension of students. The study was configured to contain one independent variable of fast-tempo music and a quiet control condition. On the other hand, the dependent variable measured the participants reading comprehension score ranging 0 – 4. For this particular study, there were two music group conditions and two control conditions each of which were conducted separately, with random assignment being used to separate the participants into the four outlined groups. This design will enable us accurately determine whether or not auditory distractions negatively influence reading comprehension performance.

Materials

For this study, the independent variable of sound / noise was a song titled “8-hour study mix: trance to study by” sourced from a YouTube Channel by “All-nighter”. The music was listened to at the same volume level. On the other hand, the dependent variable was a reading comprehension task based on an excerpt from the Official SAT textbook located in the critical reading section. The participants were given two separate passages each with about 10 lines and two questions pertaining to the particular passage read. Lastly, we used a projector screen to display the demographic survey pertaining to age, ethnicity and gender of each participant and which was to be completed upon conclusion of the reading comprehension task.

Procedure

The study was conducted in separate rooms where each of the four groups were subjected to their unique environments as outlined above. Room preparations were undertaken prior to the arrival of the participants with the researcher setting up the room by placing instruction sheets face down on each of the participant’s desks prior to their entry. Participants of each of the groups were directed to the room and each participant seated in their own individual desk. Upon instructions from the researcher to start the session, the participants were required to flip over their instruction sheets and begin the task. The two questions at the end of each section were used to probe the comprehension of the reading and thus serve as a measure for the dependent variable. All the four groups were subjected to the same reading comprehension task but in different conditions, with two groups being subjected to music while undertaking the task while the other two groups were in a quiet environment. The fast tempo beat, which was used as the auditory distraction, began immediately after the participants were instructed to begin reading the passage. Each group had exactly 10 minutes to complete the task with an electronic stop watch being used to measure the time taken. In case any of the participants completed the task before the allocated time (10 minutes), they were instructed to remain seated until the end of the allocated time. Upon completing the task, each of the participants was requested to complete the demographic survey, that had been projected on the screen, on the back of their paper and were read the debrief form. The participants were then thanked for their participation.

Results

As outlined in the earlier sections of this document, the research has been focused on a single topic of assessing the effects of auditory distraction on reading comprehension performance. The main hypothesis being tested in this research paper is that auditory distractions such as music impacts the comprehension level of students who study while listening to music. As noted in the method section above, a group of 66 students (out of the initial 78 students) who participated in the study were split into groups and exposed to different environments to test their comprehension levels. The comprehension scores collected from the study for the 66 students were collated in SPSS version 22 where all the data was keyed in and analysis undertaken to understand to test the hypothesis for this study.

Based on the data collated in SPSS, it was observed that there were 32 students who were exposed to the music environment while the remaining 34 were not exposed to any form of music during the comprehension test. Of the students exposed to the music environment, their average comprehension score was (M = 2.81, SD = 2.63) compared to that of students not exposed to music who had a much higher average score of (M = 3.00, SD = 2.44) .These statistics seem to indicate that auditory distractions such as music have a negative effect on the comprehension levels of students.

One-way ANOVA test was also undertaken to determine whether there are any significant differences between the average comprehension levels of the two independent groups. From the ANOVA test results obtained from SPSS, we observe that the significance level for the ANOVA test the model indicate P-value > 0.05 This therefore implies that there is no statistical difference between the comprehension levels of students who study with music and those who do not F(1,64) = .09, P =.765.Thus, given the statistical evidence obtained from the analysis, we fail to reject the null hypothesis and accept that there is no difference in auditory distractions have minimal to no effect on comprehension levels of students.

References

Cauchard, F., Cane, J. E., &Weger, U. W. (2012). Influence of background speech and music in interrupted reading: An eye?tracking study. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26 (3), 381390

Ee Wen, W. & Michihiko, K. (2005). The effects of music type and volume on Short-term memory. Tohoko. Psychol. Folia, 64: 68-76.

Flowers, P. J., & O’Neill, A. M. (2005). Self-reported distractions of middle school students in listening to music and prose. Journal of Research in Music Education, 53(4), 308-321.

Freeburne, C. M., & Fleischer, M. S. (1952). The effect of music distraction upon reading rate and comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 4(2), 101.

Furnham, A. & Bradley, A. (1997), Music while you work: The differential distraction of Background music on the cognitive test performance of introverts and extroverts. Applied Cognitive Psychology. 11, 445–455.

Furnham, A. & L. Strbac, (2002). Music is as distracting as noise: The differential distraction of Background music and noise on the cognitive test performance of introverts and Extraverts, Ergonomics 45, 203–217.

Henderson, M. T., Crews, A., & Barlow, J. (1945). A study of the effect of music distraction on reading efficiency. Journal of Applied Psychology, 29(4), 313.

Mayfield, C. & S. Moss (1989), Effect of music tempo on task performance.Psychological Reports, 65, 1283–1290

Mistry, H. (2015). Music while you work: The Effects of background music on test performance amongst extroverts and introverts. Journal of Applied Psychology and Social Science.

Salamé, P., & Alan B. (1989). Effects of background music on phonological short-term memory. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 41(1), 107-122

Table 1

Music and no music descriptive statistics

Mean Standard Deviation

Music 2.81 2.63

No Music 3.00 2.44

Figure 1. Effects of music on comprehension score
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Posted on May 13, 2016Author TutorCategories Question, Questions