Lily James 

Mr. Sandeen

Science Research and Design

30 May 2025

Distraction or Enhancement?

Investigating the Impact of Music on Attention 

Abstract

Focus and attention are concepts important to many students ages 14-18. Previous research concluded that attention is controlled by attentional networks called the alerting, orienting, and control networks. These control focus and allow the brain to prioritize information. We tested students’ ability to complete a search-and-find task while listening to four different noise levels, which primarily would affect the control network. Students were timed to see how long the task would take them with the different noise levels and which allowed them to most efficiently complete the task. We found that attention is something that is very subjective. Some people focused better with background noise or music, others enjoyed complete silence. Each person must figure out for themselves how they most effectively pay attention when it comes to the noise they are exposed to while trying to complete a task. 

Introduction

Focus and attention are important concepts in people ages 14-18 that apply to many areas of life. Attention is the cognitive function that allows the prioritization and selection of important information (Markett 1431). The way that attention works has been researched for many years, and it was discovered to be controlled by three independent systems, called Attentional Networks. These three systems are alerting, orienting, and control (Markett 1431). The alerting network allows the brain to deploy resources needed for attention in anticipation of something that requires focus. The orienting network directs that attention to the location cued. The control network selects relevant information and ignores other information. Music primarily affects the control network because it can pull attention away from what a person’s main focus is.

Background sound is something that can greatly impact a situation. There may be no way to control the noise someone is exposed to. Students need to know how noise will affect the quality of their studying, drivers need to understand the effect of music to ensure the safety of themselves and all other passengers, people navigating crowds need to be aware of their surroundings to avoid danger, and relationships require full attention of all parties. For someone to react to important things in their environment, the brain has to decide what to prioritize among all of the information it receives. Many things compete for highest priority, and the brain has to work to find the most relevant information (Markett 1431). 

When there is too much input and the brain cannot focus on what is most important, distraction occurs. Sometimes, distraction is the goal. Intentional distraction can be used to limit a patient’s pain during procedures, especially for children (Boles). Other times, distraction is not a good thing. Students are challenged when trying to complete assignments by the number of “more appealing activities” available to them (Xu 469). Driving can be dangerous if the driver is not focused on the road. It is important to see how sound affects attention for the safety and success of all.

Materials and Methods

Participants 

Twenty participants ages 14-18 were found by advertising and spreading the word about the project at a public high school. An even gender distribution was deemed unimportant to the study, and the participants were 20% male and 80% female. 

Materials

Four different search-and-find books were found, so that there was a broad range of material to limit factors that could cause unintentional trends. Items were selected for participants to find on each page, and pilot testing was done to ensure that each task had approximately the same level of difficulty. A quiet testing environment was used by participants so that no other factors would affect the results. 

Procedures

Participants each were read the same instructions for how to complete the task, seen in figure 1. Each participant was told that they would look at four search-and-find books, two pages in each book, and four items would be on each page for them to find. They were told that different noises would be played throughout the course of the experiment. Each participant started with one extra “practice” page so that they could practice the procedure. This was done to ensure that confusion or any questions they asked would not affect their time or the results. The order of books was rotated between participants so that the difficulty of the books would not cause trends or contribute to the results. The participants were handed their first book, and no noise was played while they were looking at the two pages in that book. They looked at the two pages in their second book and rain noise was played for them. With the third book, participants examined the two pages and quiet music was played. Finally, participants looked at the two pages in their last book and we played loud music. The same track was used for all participants’ rain noise trials. The same song was played for each of the music trials, only the volume changed between quiet and loud trials and the volume was standardized across all participants. Two trials were done within each book to provide variation. Each page was timed and documented separately for each individual participant. The speaker was placed approximately the same distance from each participant’s head to further standardize the volume.

Hypotheses

This study is meant to either reject or support the following hypotheses: “Noise does not affect high schoolers’ ability to focus,” and “Different noise levels affect high schoolers’ ability to focus.” If the null hypothesis is supported, the trials with silence will be approximately the same as the trials with rain and music. If the null hypothesis is rejected, a statistically significant difference will be seen in the time it takes for participants to complete trials with music and rain versus with no added noise.

Results

Results showed a very broad range of time taken for participants to complete the task, but no noise level impacted the timing in a way that was statistically significant. Each participant was timed while looking at each page, and those times were recorded and an average was calculated between the two trials of each noise type for each participant. Then, an average was calculated for each noise type, seen in figure 2. The p-value was calculated using T-tests to compare silence to rain noise, rain noise to quiet music, quiet music to loud music, and loud music to silence, seen in figure 3. Silence, rain noise, and quiet music tests had very similar average task completion times, and participants took an average of ten seconds longer to complete the task while listening to loud music.

Conclusions

Most participants had one noise level where they excelled or at least performed slightly better. The “least-distracting” or “best” noise level was not the same for all of the participants, it varied quite a bit. The research conducted shows that while there was some variation in the average number of seconds participants took to complete the tasks between noise levels, all p-values were higher than 0.05. This supports the null hypothesis. Therefore, for this test with this size subject group we could not assign statistical significance to the differences. The average number of seconds taken was highly similar between noise levels. There was not one noise level that worked best for the majority of participants, which leads to the conclusion that students must figure out for themselves what method of focusing or paying attention works best for them. Listening to rain or music at different volumes may greatly help some students, while others would experience significant impairment if they hear any noise at all. This may be due to differences in the strength, practice, and abilities of the orienting and control network parts of the brain. In conclusion, the least-distracting level of noise for students in the age group tested through this trial (14-18 years) is not the same for everyone, and is highly subjective.