Kiss Luca, Linnell Karina J
Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London, 8 Lewisham Way, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW, UK.
Sci Rep. 2024 Apr 25;14(1):9485. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-60218-z.
Across two online experiments, this study explored the effect of preferred background music on attentional state and performance, as well as on mood and arousal, during a vigilance task. It extended recent laboratory findings-showing an increase in task-focus and decrease in mind-wandering states with music-to environments with more distractions around participants. Participants-people who normally listen to background music during attention-demanding tasks-completed the vigilance task in their homes both with and without their chosen music and reported their attentional state, subjective arousal, and mood valence throughout the task. Experiment 1 compared music to relative silence and Experiment 2 compared music against the backdrop of continuous noise to continuous noise alone. In both experiments, music decreased mind-wandering and increased task-focus. Unlike in previous laboratory studies, in both experiments music also led to faster reaction times while increasing low-arousal external-distraction states. Importantly, mood and arousal increased with music and were shown to mediate its effects on reaction time and for the first time attentional state, both separately and together. Serial mediation effects were mostly confined to models where mood was entered first and arousal second and were consistent with the mood-arousal account of the impact of background music listening.
通过两项在线实验，本研究探讨了在警觉任务中，偏好的背景音乐对注意力状态、表现以及情绪和唤醒水平的影响。它将近期实验室研究结果——即音乐能增加任务专注度并减少走神状态——扩展到了参与者周围干扰更多的环境中。参与者是那些在需要注意力的任务中通常会听背景音乐的人，他们在家中完成警觉任务，一次是在有他们所选音乐的情况下，一次是在没有音乐的情况下，并在整个任务过程中报告他们的注意力状态、主观唤醒水平和情绪效价。实验1将音乐与相对安静的环境进行了比较，实验2将有背景音乐的持续噪音环境与只有持续噪音的环境进行了比较。在两个实验中，音乐都减少了走神并增加了任务专注度。与之前的实验室研究不同，在两个实验中，音乐还导致反应时间加快，同时增加了低唤醒的外部干扰状态。重要的是，情绪和唤醒水平随着音乐而增加，并被证明分别和共同介导了音乐对反应时间以及首次对注意力状态的影响。系列中介效应大多局限于情绪先进入模型且唤醒水平后进入模型的情况，并且与听背景音乐影响的情绪 - 唤醒理论一致。
