The Influence of Video Game Music on Verbal Reasoning Task Performance
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Date
2019-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Echoing media coverage of the “Mozart effect” in the mid-1990s, recent popular press reports have propagated the idea that listening to video game music can enhance worker productivity and improve task performance. The current experiment empirically tested this possibility. Undergraduates (N = 513) completed two verbal reasoning tasks, one while in silence and one while listening to music from either (1) classical composers or (2) popular video game franchises (i.e., The Sims or Super Mario). Results indicated that participants’ self-reported mood, arousal, and attention did not differ across conditions. Although listening to music from Super Mario caused participants to perform worse on the verbal reasoning task, this detrimental effect did not occur among participants who had prior experience playing Super Mario video games. These results provide minimal support for the idea that video game music influences task performance in ways that are unique from other types of music.