Contrary to the widespread belief that music increases creativity, specialists have challenged this notion.
Their new study claims that it might actually have quite the opposite effect.
Let's find out more!
Unexpected results
In their investigation, the psychologists focused on the impact of background music on performance by presenting participants with verbal insight problems, known for tapping into creativity.
Surprisingly, they discovered that background music had a detrimental effect on individual's ability to complete tasks that involve verbal creativity.
However, no such negative impact was observed for background library noise.
The experiments involved exposing participants to different musical conditions while engaging in verbal tasks.
These conditions included background music with unfamiliar lyrics, instrumental music without lyrics, and also music with familiar lyrics.
In each instance, background music, regardless of its lyrical content, led to impaired performance in comparison to quiet background conditions.
The specialists postulate that this impairment may be attributed to music disrupting verbal working memory.
Surprisingly, even music with familiar lyrics negatively affected creativity, regardless of its mood-boosting effects or participants' personal preferences for music during study sessions.
On the other hand, there was no significant difference in verbal task performance between the quiet environment and the background library noise condition.
