What Is It about the Sound of Music?: Experimental Variability in Music and Cognition Research

Music serves a variety of purposes from regulating emotions to establishing atmosphere to relieving boredom by simply filling empty space (Cuadrado, 2019; Harris et al., 2020; Kawakami et al., 2014; Lonsdale & North, 2011; North et al., 2000). In particular, background music—music played to accompany a separate primary task—has become common in both public and private spaces. However, the current literature on the effects of background music has found background music to have detrimental (Chou, 2010), beneficial (Angel et al., 2010; Kiss & Linnell, 2020), or null effects (Kämpfe et al., 2011) on cognitive processes. Researchers have turned to examining individual elements of music such as tempo, presence of lyrics, and listener familiarity or preference to understand how they may mediate the relationship. However, there is still no conclusive evidence of their impact. This paper examines how researchers’ choices in music selection for the study of background music may have inadvertently included variables that obscure the relationship between the target manipulated musical element and the measure of cognitive processes. Based on the collection of research, I then offer several suggestions and guidelines for conducting future research on how music may impact cognitive processes