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Psychology of Music, Vol. 35, No. 3, 403-420 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0305735607072653

Musical distracters, personality type and cognitive performance in school children

Adrian Furnham

University College London, a.furnham{at}ucl.ac.uk

Rebecca Stephenson

University College London, rf.stephenson{at}aol.com

The aim of this study was to ascertain the nature of the interaction between the affective value of musical distraction, personality type and performance on the cognitive tasks of reading comprehension, free recall, mental arithmetic and verbal reasoning in children aged 11—12 years. It was hypothesized that the cognitive performance of extraverts would be signifcantly poorer when in the presence of background music that has a negatively affective value than when in the presence of background music that has a positively affective value. It was predicted that the converse of this would be true of introverts and neurotic personality types. Although few signifcant results were found in support of the central hypothesis, several results supported theoretical assumptions and showed clear trends that warrant further investigation. Limitations of this study and both experimental and interpretational problems in this area are discussed.

Key Words: intelligence testing • music distraction • personality traits • pre-adolescents


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