Proverbio Alice Mado, De Benedetto Francesco, Ferrari Maria Vittoria, Ferrarini Giorgia
Neuro-Mi Center for Neuroscience, Dept. of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
PLoS One. 2018 Feb 21;13(2):e0192296. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192296. eCollection 2018.
Studies in the literature have provided conflicting evidence about the effects of background noise or music on concurrent cognitive tasks. Some studies have shown a detrimental effect, while others have shown a beneficial effect of background auditory stimuli. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of agitating, happy or touching music, as opposed to environmental sounds or silence, on the ability of non-musician subjects to perform arithmetic operations. Fifty university students (25 women and 25 men, 25 introverts and 25 extroverts) volunteered for the study. The participants were administered 180 easy or difficult arithmetic operations (division, multiplication, subtraction and addition) while listening to heavy rain sounds, silence or classical music. Silence was detrimental when participants were faced with difficult arithmetic operations, as it was associated with significantly worse accuracy and slower RTs than music or rain sound conditions. This finding suggests that the benefit of background stimulation was not music-specific but possibly due to an enhanced cerebral alertness level induced by the auditory stimulation. Introverts were always faster than extroverts in solving mathematical problems, except when the latter performed calculations accompanied by the sound of heavy rain, a condition that made them as fast as introverts. While the background auditory stimuli had no effect on the arithmetic ability of either group in the easy condition, it strongly affected extroverts in the difficult condition, with RTs being faster during agitating or joyful music as well as rain sounds, compared to the silent condition. For introverts, agitating music was associated with faster response times than the silent condition. This group difference may be explained on the basis of the notion that introverts have a generally higher arousal level compared to extroverts and would therefore benefit less from the background auditory stimuli.
文献中的研究对于背景噪音或音乐对同时进行的认知任务的影响提供了相互矛盾的证据。一些研究显示出有害影响，而另一些研究则表明背景听觉刺激具有有益影响。本研究的目的是调查激昂、欢快或感人的音乐，与环境声音或寂静相比，对非音乐专业受试者进行算术运算能力的影响。五十名大学生（25名女性和25名男性，25名内向者和25名外向者）自愿参与了这项研究。参与者在听着大雨声、寂静或古典音乐的同时，接受了180道简单或困难的算术运算（除法、乘法、减法和加法）。当参与者面对困难的算术运算时，寂静是有害的，因为与音乐或雨声条件相比，它与显著更低的准确性和更慢的反应时间相关。这一发现表明，背景刺激的益处并非特定于音乐，而是可能由于听觉刺激引起的大脑警觉水平提高。内向者在解决数学问题时总是比外向者更快，除非外向者在伴随着大雨声的情况下进行计算，这种情况下他们与内向者一样快。虽然背景听觉刺激在简单条件下对两组的算术能力均无影响，但在困难条件下它对外向者有强烈影响，与寂静条件相比，在激昂或欢快的音乐以及雨声期间反应时间更快。对于内向者而言，激昂的音乐与比寂静条件更快的反应时间相关。这种群体差异可以基于内向者通常比外向者具有更高的唤醒水平这一观点来解释，因此内向者从背景听觉刺激中受益较少。
