Dear Robbin and List:
--Bruno
Dear Bruno and List,
I noticed the same thing myself in college: listening to music did not interfere with math homework, but I could not read or write while listening to any type of music. I believe that this is due to the necessary allocation of some of the same neural structures for both musical and linguistic processing. For instance, BA 44 or Broca's area is thought to be involved in "syntactic" processing of both music and language.
I've listed a few references below. There are many more relevant papers out there, but these are some of the ones that first came to mind.
~Robbin
Besson M. and Schön D. (2001) Comparison between music and language. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 930: 232-258.
Koelsch S., Gunter T.C., v. Cramon Y., Zysset S., Lohmann G., and Friederici A.D.
(2002) Bach speaks: A cortical "language-network" serves the processing of music. NeuroImage. 17: 956-966.
Maess B., Koelsch S., Gunter T.C., and Friederici A.D. (2001) Musical syntax is
processed in Broca's area: an MEG study. Nature Neuroscience. 4(5): 540-545.
Patel A.D., Gibson E., Ratner J., Besson M., and Holcomb P.J. (1998) Processing
syntactic relations in language and music: An event-related potential study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 10(6): 717-733.
Robbin Miranda Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience Georgetown University 3900 Reservoir Rd., NW Washington DC 20007 (202) 687-8449
----- Original Message ----- From: Bruno Repp <repp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 10:17 am Subject: Re: working memory and melody
Dear list members:
Somewhat related to the current discussion, but leading to a separate question, is an informal observation I have made over a number of years. I am an avid music listener and listen to classical music practically every morning and evening. Classical music requires full attention to be appreciated properly. However, because the listening takes up a lot of time, I have often tried to combine it with other activities. I soon found out that reading, even of the most trivial text, is totally disruptive. I feel I have not heard the music at all while I was reading-a very disheartening experience. Before the advent of personal computers, I used to score data or draw graphs while listening. That was less distracting but still interfered a bit. Lately, I have become addicted to Sudoku. I find that solving Sudoku puzzles does not really interfere with music listening at all, even though I frequently need to keep lists of up to five digits in verbal working memory.
I would be interested to learn about any references to research (or any informal comments) that might address why reading interferes so strongly with music listening but Sudoku doesn't. Although there is some research on the effect of music on reading (though probably not on Sudoku), I am not aware of any research that investigated how different secondary tasks interfere with music listening. One problem is surely to find an objective and quantifiable measure of how effective the music listening was.
Best,
Bruno -- Bruno H. Repp Haskins Laboratories 300 George Street New Haven, CT 06511-6624 Tel. (203) 865-6163, ext. 236 Fax (203) 865-8963 http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/repp.html
NOTE: I am at Rutgers University, Newark, two days per week, usually Tuesday and Wednesday or Friday, and don't read my Haskins e-mail on those days. To reach me at Rutgers, send e-mail to <repp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>.
-- Bruno H. Repp Haskins Laboratories 300 George Street New Haven, CT 06511-6624 Tel. (203) 865-6163, ext. 236 Fax (203) 865-8963 http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/repp.html
NOTE: I am at Rutgers University, Newark, two days per week, usually Tuesday and Wednesday or Friday, and don't read my Haskins e-mail on those days. To reach me at Rutgers, send e-mail to <repp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>.