The Effect of Background Music on Reading Comprehension — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

The Effect of Background Music on Reading Comprehension

Name: Michelle Spiewak
Major: Psychology
Hometown: Woodridge, Illinois
Faculty Sponsor: Leslie Cameron
Other Sponsors: Bob Maleske
Type of research: Senior thesis

Abstract

Multitasking, or more accurately task-switching, has previously been linked to attention and performance deficits. Listening to music while performing another task (a form of task-switching) can enhance or impair performance. Previous research has explored performance in the context of versions of known and unknown songs with and without lyrics. An open question is: will novel music with and without lyrics have a positive or negative impact on reading comprehension scores of college students? This ongoing experiment examines the effect of original music on reading comprehension. Thus far 62 undergraduate psychology students, aged 18 and older, read and answered questions to two passages from an ACT reading test in the presence of novel music with lyrics, novel music without lyrics, ambient noise, or silence. Preliminary analyses showed no effect of music condition on reading comprehension. However, the sample size was relatively small and consequently data are still being collected. The predicted results are that reading comprehension scores will be lowest in the music with lyrics condition and highest in the ambient noise and silent conditions. Therefore, it is expected that this experiment will indicate that music significantly impairs reading comprehension. This field of study is important for understanding how work and study conditions can affect cognition and performance.