Listening to Background Music While Studying - Emotional Drive or Cognitive Overload?

Music is an omnipresent element in our daily life that is also used to accompany studying. Past research investigating the effects of background music shows controversial results and did not investigate individual musical factors. Independently from musical experience, higher musical perception abilities are supposed to result in a higher cognitive load through background music, resulting in a lower frequency of listening to music while studying (H1). Secondly, middle levels of emotional reactivity on music could increase listening frequency, while low and high values would result in no benefit or over-arousal (inverted u-shape, H2). Furthermore, this study explores the general usage and habits of background music while studying. The study sample contained N = 129 participants. A negative partial correlation between the background music frequency and the musical perception abilities could be confirmed, after controlling for musical experience values. Polynomial regression analysis did not show significant results for the relationship between variables of emotional reactivity to music and the frequency of listening to background music (H2). The results indicate that inter-individual differences in music processing are rather related to cognitive overload than to emotional drive. The study confirms the importance of the topic and suggests implications for learners and researchers.