Musically Minded

Overview

Objectives/Goals What genre of music, if any, increases efficiency while doing schoolwork? I tested this because when I was listening to music while working. While researching, I discovered that when we listen to music, a chemical called dopamine is released into our brains. This makes us energized and happy, therefore, music may help our efficiency. Methods/Materials I tested 6 people to see if listening to a certain type of music made them work more quickly while doing schoolwork. They were each given a test with math, vocab matching, and a word search on it and then I timed them while they listened to a certain type of genre. Results My testing revealed that listening to hip-hop music allowed my participants to finish their tests fastest with an average time of 2:08, this beat the runner-up (classical) by a lot. Taking the tests without music being played had the 3rd fastest time and the Choice section of music had the slowest time. Conclusions/Discussion Though my hypothesis was correct; I still think this subject could be delved deeper into. Humans are so diverse, it's impossible to get a completely accurate result. If I redid this experiment, I would want to test different age groups and include more music genres. I also want to put in some harder problems that require critical thinking/reading comprehension. I found it interesting that choice had the slowest time, I believe this happened because since this song was my participants' choice, they got distracted by the music because they enjoyed the song. One final note: Had I included harder problems, I believe classical would have been the best, as that affects your ability to comprehend things better and also assists your ability to think critically.

Competition history

• CSEF 2014 Cognitive Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0720

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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