| Summary: | University of the Witwatersrand
MA Research Psychology 2014 === This study investigates the effects of complex music on concurrent task performance in
a response-competition paradigm. Past research in this domain have produced disparate
results, ranging from deleterious to facilitative effects. However, such research has failed
to account for schematic expectancy violation in its operationalization of melodic
complexity. Competing models of cross-modal cognition were therefore evaluated using
atonal and tonal musical compositions in a quasi-experimental research design, with
response times in the attentional network task (ANT) used to infer whether music had a
facilitative or distracting effect on task performance. Participants were recruited from the
University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Human and Community Development. The
computer-based attentional network task (ANT) was administered using the E-prime
software, while participants were concurrently exposed to music. Repeated-measure
ANOVAs were run to determine whether differences in means attained were significant.
The results were consistent with Hockey’s (1997) compensatory control model, which
predicted faster reaction times during concurrent exposure to complex music due to the
activation of a top-down cognitive mechanism which allots greater working memory
resources to the primary task. This increase in working memory resources should have
led to reduced involuntary attentional switching, thus focused selective attention and
enhanced task performance. While the model also predicted a performance-cost tradeoff
in the form of physiological distress, self-reported measures of affective and physiological
states yielded no statistically significant differences between music conditions. These
findings are discussed against a backdrop of past research findings, and
recommendations for future studies made accordingly.
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