Increased engagement or reduced cognitive capacity: The effect of music and agency on a cognitive-motor interference task

This study aimed to determine whether either increased engagement, or reduced cognitive capacity better explains the previously reported mixed effects of music on motor performance. Differences in tapping performance under various auditory stimuli and task conditions were analysed. The experimental design was a within-subject repeated measures study, where participants were exposed to three auditory stimuli (metronome, self-selected music, and researcher-selected music) and two task conditions (rhythmic tapping with and without an additional cognitive task). Performance was measured using the coefficient of variation, which measures the consistency of participants’ tapping. The first hypothesis was that music would lead to better performance on the finger tapping task compared to metronome in the single task condition. Performance across metronome, self-selected music, and researcher-selected music conditions was compared. The second hypothesis posited that finger-tapping...Show moreThis study aimed to determine whether either increased engagement, or reduced cognitive capacity better explains the previously reported mixed effects of music on motor performance. Differences in tapping performance under various auditory stimuli and task conditions were analysed. The experimental design was a within-subject repeated measures study, where participants were exposed to three auditory stimuli (metronome, self-selected music, and researcher-selected music) and two task conditions (rhythmic tapping with and without an additional cognitive task). Performance was measured using the coefficient of variation, which measures the consistency of participants’ tapping. The first hypothesis was that music would lead to better performance on the finger tapping task compared to metronome in the single task condition. Performance across metronome, self-selected music, and researcher-selected music conditions was compared. The second hypothesis posited that finger-tapping performance would decline when a working memory task was added for all auditory conditions, with the music conditions leading to more interference (meaning worse performance) than the metronome condition. This was tested by comparing the performance between the single and dual task, and between the metronome, self- selected and researcher-selected music conditions. The final hypothesis was that self-selected music will lead to better performance on both the single and dual-task than researcher-selected music, thus comparing self-selected and researcher-selected music for both single and dual-task conditions. The findings revealed no significant differences in performance between metronome and music conditions for either single or dual tasks. Additionally, no significant differences were found in performance between self-selected and researcher-selected music for both task types. Consequently, this study could not determine whether task engagement due to music or increased cognitive capacity due to music better explains the effects of music on task performance. Recommendations for future research are provided.Show less

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Increased engagement or reduced cognitive capacity: The effect of music and agency on a cognitive-motor interference task