Birman and Ferguson increase our understanding of the cognitive effects of listening to music. They report that their study participants “were randomly assigned to four different groups: silence (no music), classical music, rock, and the final group could choose any genre they liked. The California Verbal Learning Test—Second Edition (CVLT-II) was administered to assess participant’s memory. Anxiety was also assessed before and after the memory test to see whether the music had any effect. Generally, results suggested that music presence or genre had little tangible effect on memory or anxiety.”
Anna Birman and Christopher Ferguson. “Impact of Different Genres of Background Music on a Memory Task.” Journal of Individual Differences, in press, https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000371