{"id":14383,"date":"2021-10-11T14:24:59","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T05:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/?p=14383"},"modified":"2021-10-11T14:24:59","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T05:24:59","slug":"should-you-study-with-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/2021\/10\/11\/should-you-study-with-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Should you study with music?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was 16 and studying for my big exams. I sat down at my desk and read a brochure my mum gave me. The first line said, “Turn off your music. Stop kidding yourself, you don’t study any better with it on!” I did and it helped. But were they right? As always in psychology, we have to ask ourselves “what does the research say?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The goal of studying is to process information and transfer it from your short-term to your long-term memory. The best conditions for studying, therefore, can be explained using the working memory model of short-term memory. This model suggests that our capacity for processing information is very limited and anything that distracts our attention will reduce performance.<\/p>\n

We know from dual task studies that if you try to do two tasks at the same time it will reduce your effectiveness. For example, try to read any of these paragraphs whilst saying “the” out-loud, repeatedly. It’s much harder than just reading in silence. This is articulatory suppression – one task suppresses the phonological loop from rehearsing (articulating) the information. So for effective studying you want to avoid any task that prevents you from rehearsing (saying to yourself) the information in your mind.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n