International Journal of School and Cognitive Psychology
Open Access

Improving Attention by Background Music: A Study on the Effects of Background Music on Adolescents' Attention when Studying

Xu Qiujian^1*, Ren Xiubo², Wang Xiaoyu^1,2, Wang Shidan², Yang Dan^1,2, Li Junrui¹, Yuan Xinran¹, Liu Siqi¹, Liu Ningning¹, Yang Mingyi² and Yang Jiaqi^{1 *}Correspondence: Xu Qiujian, Department of Music, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China, Email:

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Description

Music therapy is a therapeutic approach that uses music and music technology to help people improve their physical and mental health. Music therapy is “a therapeutic modality aimed at attaining developmental, adaptive, and rehabilitative objectives within individuals' psychosocial, cognitive, and sensorimotor domains” [1]. Music therapy practitioners employ diverse musical techniques to facilitate relaxation, stress reduction, heightened self-awareness, improved self-esteem, emotional problem resolution, and enhanced patient communication abilities. This therapeutic approach has been extensively applied in psychotherapy, rehabilitation, and medical settings [2].

Background music is referred to as Background Music (BGM). It can play a role in masking the ambient noise of the place we are in and creating a relaxing atmosphere [3]. Due to the development of music therapy in recent years, many researchers have started to use music to channel the brain's functions and apply background music to learning. In the learning process of adolescents, attention is an important psychological factor affecting adolescents learning. Lack of concentration quickly leads to learning disabilities, mainly manifested as poor concentration in class and inability to pay attention to lectures; weak observation skills and difficulty in reading; poor visual-motor integration and writing; poor comprehension and lagging thinking skills. Listening to music has been observed to positively impact the overall functioning of the brain, leading to improvements in memory, cognitive processing, and the stimulation of creative thinking. Musical information catalyzes facilitating these effects, fostering heightened memory retention, facilitating active cognitive processes, and nurturing the development of creative thinking skills.

The usefulness of playing background music while studying

As early as 1952, Hall conducted a study that revealed the different effects of various types of background music on students reading comprehension. It was found that classical background music could have a positive effect on reading comprehension, a negative effect in a popular music context, and no significant difference in reading comprehension between a jazz background and no musical background at all [4]. Lozanov suggested in the 1960s that background music could stimulate students' memories and improve learning in young people. He believed soothing rhythmic music could stimulate the brain and enhance memory. This is because when the rhythm of the music is in harmony with the rhythm of the information input, it can sufficiently remove mental tension from students and help improve their concentration, allowing them to learn efficiently in a state of increased brain vitality. In the early 20^th century, experts at the Institute of Education in London studied the positive effects of different types of background music on children's performance on cognitive tests [5]. Similarly, some studies have shown that some music interferes with memory. However, this interference is mainly caused by the lyrical content rather than the music itself [6-9].

Conclusion

The analysis of this study concluded that both facilitative and disruptive effects of back ground music on attention in learning exist and that different background music conditions have different effects on attention, i.e., both the arousal theory of background music and the cognitive resource appropriation theory exist for learning activities in the presence of back-ground music. It may be possible to experiment with fast-paced, lowvolume, and slow paced high volume background music to improve young people's concentration while learning.

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