I was going to be a doctor – just like my dad – but music kept getting in the way. Whether it was zoning out to music instead of studying or bunking off school to hang out with Adrian who had the Yamaha QX1, the older I got the less interesting academics seemed and the more attractive music became.
I lost interest completely in my last 2 years of school and ended up blowing my finals – instead of going to Edinburgh medical school I ended up studying Psychology at The Polytechnic of Central London – and even then I found the study of genetics, chemistry and biology interminably dull. The one thing that kept me on the course was the psychology – I loved it. I find people fascinating – whether I’m at the Sidewalk Café, Café Du Monde, The Crusting Pipe, or slumming it at Brasserie Bofinger at Bastille – people watching is my favorite past time.
To complete your honors degree you have to produce a huge paper – kind of like a kid’s science fair project complete with hypothesis and presentations except you have 6 months to do it and they give you a budget. I knew exactly what I wanted to study: How Sound Affects Human Performance – and of course I cross referenced it against personality type.
My study consisted of me hunting for the best quality audio tape I could find on Tottenham Court Road and then recording onto it different volume levels of a simple tone. I would stand outside the faculty building and tempt unsuspecting freshmen (can you have freshwomen? I hope so…) to come and have their personality tested and a run a little experiment.
I don’t know why but I find that people love the idea of taking a personality test – I suspect it’s why those bastards of the church of Scientology use a similar tool when they’re trying to get their money grabbing hooks into your consciousness.
Still – I was pretty successful at this and would give the students a test called the Eysenck EPI which basically sorted them into two types – Introverts or Extraverts. I then escorted them down into the bowels of the faculty building to a soundproof room and sat them on the business side of a reaction time box. This is a simple metal box that has three lights on it and a button underneath each light. One of the lights comes on and the subject has to hit the corresponding button as quickly as they can – the box measures the reaction time in milliseconds and I would mark it down. While this is going on the subject is wearing a very expensive pair of headphones and I am subjecting them to increasingly loud volumes of tones. This was almost as fun as the two way mirror stuff!
Having got all the information together – this is what the data looked like.
In essence – reaction times got better (performance increased) as I added noise up until a certain point where the noise became distracting at which point it started to decline. And on top of that – extraverts needed more stimulus than introverts to get to their optimal performance.
This study – and trust me, there’s nothing like actually doing it yourself to have the message hammered home – has stayed with me my whole life. I’m not really concerned with the Introvert / Extravert stuff but the fact that actually adding noise – bringing in aural stimulation – improves performance compared to no noise at all (and yes – I did run controls) was way cool. As a kid you’re often told not to play your music when you do your homework – well – duh!
I’m not recommending that you have noise on all the time – silence is an incredible experience (if actually attained) and I will often have nothing on if I’m working through a particular construct. However – as a rule of thumb, I pretty much always have music playing when I’m working. I’ll get into the whole point of lyrics and stories and why I think instrumental music is better music to work to in a later post – but if you want to get smarter right now – go check out some music2work2 – it really is music to work to.
