The Effect of Music on the Level of Mental Concentration and its Temporal Change

Concentration is one of the most important factor in determining the efficiency of learning. There has not been, however, much systematic research on controlling the level of concentration. We therefore examined the effect of an external factor, namely playing music, on the performance on a task that requires much attention. We compared three conditions: music that the subject likes, music that the subject is not familiar with, and silence. The result showed that listening to music that the subject likes do increase the performance level. Also, we discovered that there exist different temporal patterns in the change of performance. The result also indicated relationship between the temporal pattern in concentration and the external factor.

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