Santangelo and associates studied the effects of hearing music on decisions made. They determined that “music is frequently played while we are engaged in other activities that rely on decision-making (e.g., driving). . . . We analyzed response times and accuracy from more than 100-thousand decisions and mapped the effects of music onto decision-process components with a mechanistic model of decision-making. We found evidence . . . . [that] decisions—across domains—were faster but less accurate with music. . . . Overall, our results suggest that background music shapes our decisions by making us less cautious.”
Agustin Santangelo, Casimir Ludwig, Joaquin Navajas, Mariano Sigman, and Maria Leone. “Background Music Changes the Policy of Human Decision-Making: Evidence from Experimental and Drift-Diffusion Model-Based Approaches on Different Decision Tasks.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, in press, https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001189