The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013)

I found this study seemed biased and placed the subjects in unrealistic, disruptive conditions, not really relevant to the problem at hand. Listening to a classical or rock piece for the first time is an intellectually stimulating activity and will be distracting to anyone.

People who listen to music while working will rather listen to stuff they're already familiar with, and will set the volume and other conditions in a way that feels most comfortable to them. This study forced alien music at predetermined volumes on the participants.

Well, that came out more brutal than intended. I'm also biased: I often listen to drone music while programming, it blocks out exterior sounds and makes me feel like I'm in a spaceship.

From the last paragraph: "data from this study has demonstrated that silence seems to be the best environment to maximize performance when engaging in cognitive activity. Classical music was not shown to enhance performance ... Hence, the direct benefits of listening to music on cognitive processing could be more of a fantasy than a reality."

I can listen to music when I'm doing routine tasks (copying and pasting, writing emails, or creating simple code). When I need to do something that takes heavy cognitive processing, though, music serves as a distraction and I have to turn it off.

For me, in find that the distinguishing factor is how familiar I am with the music. Familiar music will help improve my (perceived) productivity (or at least, it does not hurt it significantly), while unfamiliar music is very distracting.

This reminds me of the study on music and programming cited in Peopleware, which has been discussed here before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1995698, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6274594). I wonder when someone is going to run experiments like this that are actually useful and conclusively support an argument.

There's also this more recent study, which doesn't really address the same problem the Peopleware study identified: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/LESIUKart...

This study seems mostly of interest for students wanting to work in their room (as said in the beginning of the article). I do not think it is relevant for workers (I assume most readers of HN are professionals).

Is there any experiment to test the effect of listening music to cut yourself from a noisy environment?

I noticed these white noise generators in my local Community college library and a few business offices. They produce the same whooshing noises as modern HVAC systems (heating, ventilating, air conditioning) and seem pretty effective, after spending a few dozens of hours with my linear algebra and D books.

http://www.marpac.com/Marpac-Dohm-NSF/dp/B006Z8J9I0