Limited brain resources: Block out noise levels: Does music help with concentration?

The impression that you can concentrate better with music in your ears is deceptive. Photo

© Christin Klose/dpa-tmn

Do you also plug in your headphones and listen to music to be more productive at work? Impressions can be deceptive. A noise expert explains why.

Constant chatter in an open-plan office, constant shuffling in the classroom or droning in the supermarket: noises do not always have to be particularly loud to be perceived as stressful – and to cause employees to feel nervous, tense or have difficulty concentrating, for example.

This particularly affects workplaces where many people are present at the same time. What is perceived as disturbing varies greatly from individual to individual, says Sandra Dantscher, noise expert at the DGUV Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. What one person barely hears can repeatedly distract another from concentration.

Music also draws cognitive resources

Particularly problematic is understandable speech in the background, such as the telephone conversation three desks away or the shopping radio blaring on a continuous loop in the supermarket. The brain can hardly do anything other than process all the information, and that costs energy.

Then just put your headphones in and turn up your favorite songs? The impression that you can concentrate better with music in your ears is deceptive. There are people who can subjectively work well with music, says Dantscher. But studies have shown that music also distracts from the tasks that need to be done: “The brain only has a certain capacity and can therefore only process a limited number of impressions in parallel.”

dpa