A behavioral study on the effects of rock music on auditory attention

Abstract

We are interested in the distribution of top-down attention in noisy environments, in which the listening capability is challenged by rock music playing in the background. We conducted behavioral experiments in which the subjects were asked to focus their attention on a narrative and detect a specific word, while the voice of the narrator was masked by rock songs that were alternating in the background. Our study considers several types of songs and investigates how their distinct features affect the ability to segregate sounds. Additionally, we examine the effect of the subjects' familiarity to the music. © 2013 Springer International Publishing.