# The Effects of Background Music on Primary School Pupils' Task Performance #### (2002) Susan Hallam, John Price, Georgia Katsarou Link:: https://doi.org/10.1080/03055690220124551 Related:: Tags:: #📜 ### Abstract Research on the effects of background music has a long history. Early work was not embedded within a theoretical framework, was often poorly conceptualised and produced equivocal findings. This paper reports two studies exploring the effects of music, perceived to be calming and relaxing, on performance in arithmetic and on a memory task in children aged 10-12. The calming music led to better performance on both tasks when compared with a no-music condition. Music perceived as arousing, aggressive and unpleasant disrupted performance on the memory task and led to a lower level of reported altruistic behaviour by the children. This suggests that the effects of music on task performance are mediated by arousal and mood rather than affecting cognition directly. The findings are discussed in relation to possible practical applications in the primary school and the home. # Summary [[Music and sound effects people differently depending on the person]]. # Annotations (11/16/2022, 12:44:34 PM) “TheŽnding sfromthisstudysuggeste dthatbackgroun dmusiccouldenhanc e thespeedofworkin gonmathematic sproblems .Itdidnotleadtogreate r accuracy.Thissupporte dthearousa lhypothesi sofmusic ’seffect sontask performance.” (Hallam et al., 2002, p. 116) This agrees with the study on the effect of music tempo and ask performance. It doesn't change quality but it does seem to change the speech at which problems are solved. “eeffect sofmusicontaskperformanc eare mediatedthroug hitseffect sonarousa landmood .” (Hallam et al., 2002, p. 119) Essentially, this means that the effects of music on arousal and mood can in turn change people's behavior after listening to it. This suggests the type of music that you listen to could play a role in how you respond to that music alongside tempo. But there must be much more research done to uncover what types of music cause what types of effect and mood and to what effect size. It's difficult to study this because the same type of music can cause different reactions in people depending on their affect toward that music beforehand.