From Mozart to Metallica, tons of people enjoy listening to various types of music while they paint, write, or draw. Most believe that music helps increase creativity, but an international study conducted by English and Swedish researchers is challenging that view. The study results were echoed by scientists from Lancaster University, and the University of Gavle, saying their findings show music actually weakens creativity.
To reach their conclusions, researchers had volunteers complete verbal problems designed to inspire creativity while sitting in a quiet room, and then again while music played in the background. They found that background music significantly weakened the volunteers' ability to complete tasks connected with verbal creativity. The team also tested background noises like those commonly heard in a library, but found that such noises had no influence on subjects' creativity.
The tasks were simple word games. For example, volunteers were given three words, such as dress, rise, and flower. Then, they were asked to find a single word connected with all three that could be combined to form a common phrase or word. The single word, in this case, would be "sun" (sundress, sunrise, sunflower). Volunteers completed the tasks in either a quiet room, or while listening to two different types of music: rock music or light music
"We found strong evidence of weakened performance when playing background music in comparison to quiet background conditions," says co-author D. Neil McLatchie of Lancaster University. He and his colleagues find that music negatively influences the verbal working memory processes of the brain, preventing creativity. Also, as far as the library background noises having seemingly no effect, the study's authors believe that was the case because library noises create a "regular state" environment that doesn't affect concentration.
"To conclude, the findings here challenge the popular view that music increases creativity, and instead show that music, whatever type it is, is always a disadvantage for creative performance in problem solving," the study reads.
