The influence of musical distraction of varying complexity on the cognitive performance of extroverts and introverts

✍ Scribed by Adrian Furnham; Kathryn Allass

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 132 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0890-2070
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0984(199901/02)13:1<27::aid-per318>3.0.co;2-r

✦ Synopsis

This study examined the eects of complexity in background music on the performance of four cognitive tasks by extroverts and introverts. In the presence of either complex' or simple' musical distraction or in silence, 24 introverts and 24 extroverts carried out a reading comprehension test, an observation test, and a memory test (in which recall was measured both immediately and after a six-minute delay). An interaction was predicted such that increasing-complexity musical distraction would result in the increase of extroverts', and the decrease of introverts', cognitive-task performance. A signi®cant interaction was obtained for three of the four tests: the observation test and both memory tests. These ®ndings are discussed with regard to Eysenck's theory of personality.