The effect of background music on verbal interaction in groups

Author(s): Zalanowski, A.

Journal/Book: Journal of Music Therapy. 1984; 21: Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. National Association for Music Therapy. 16-26.

Abstract: Two experiments were conducted to determine the effects of different types of background music on verbal interaction in small group discussions. In the first experiment, soothing music, stimulating music, or no music provided the background for dicussions which required the group to reach a consensus in ranking the correctness of 8 opinion-type statements. The soothing music group had more verbalizations and took longer to reach a consensus, though the differences were not statistically significant. In the second experiment, the same conditions were used, but the discussion topic was changed to one which required the group to reach a consensus on the truthfulness of 11 statements based on a very brief story. The soothing music groups had significantly more verbalizations and again took longer, but were not more accurate. Possible reasons for these effects and implications for music therapy are discussed.

Keyword(s): background-music, sedative, music, stimulative-music, verbal, verbalization, verbal-communication, groups.

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