Is it time to ditch your chilled-out, 'deep focus' playlists? if you want to get down to work, you might need something 'groovier', suggests new research

Music streaming services are full of ‘functional playlists’ that are designed to provide audio assistance at various times of the day. Getting up in the morning, exercising and relaxing, for example.

Some of the most popular such playlists are devoted to helping you work or study, and typically feature sweeping, chilled-out soundscapes with minimal rhythmic drive. However, new research suggests that it could actually be ‘groovier’ music that's better suited to boosting brainpower and mental agility.

A report in The Times details a study carried out at New York University and published in academic journal PLS One. This involved 280 participants being split into four groups, each of which was played a different kind of “auditory backdrop”: office noise, pop music, deep focus tunes or work flow music.

“The ‘work flow’ music we tested was characterised by strong rhythm with simple tonality, broadly distributed spectral energy below ~6000 Hz, and moderate dynamism,” say the study’s authors. “By contrast, the ‘deep focus’ music that we tested was more minimalistic, with similarly simple tonality, but weaker rhythm, lower and more restricted spectral energy, and more reserved dynamism.”

As well as being asked to gauge their mood before and after hearing their audio for 10 minutes, participants were also required to take the so-called ‘flanker task’ while it was playing. Designed to measure attention levels and mental processing, this involves participants repeatedly having to say which way an arrow is pointing when it’s surrounded by other symbols that are designed to confuse them.

“Regarding mood, the results showed that only the work flow music had a significant effect, driving improvements in overall mood from before to after the flanker task,” says the study.

“Regarding flanker task performance, the results showed that, while response accuracy was not affected by audio condition, response speed was. Specifically, we observed a significant interaction between audio condition and trial number, such that participants listening to work flow music responded more quickly over time."

In other words, those who listened to the work flow music were able to work quicker - by around 7%, in fact - possibly because the music was improving their mood. This is consistent with what’s known as arousal mood theory, which suggests that “positive effects of music listening on cognition can be understood in terms of music’s well-documented capacities to upregulate arousal level and positive affect.”

Summarising the team’s findings, senior study author Pablo Ripollés of New York University says: “There was a correlation between how much their mood improved and how fast they were providing correct answers.

“This is just a first study, but we hypothesise that the work flow music had an effect on both mood and speed of [mental] processing because it was liked and groovy at the same time.”

Ripollés also suggests that, while pop music might also have the potential to improve mood via its groove, its lyrics and sudden melodic changes could be distracting and have an impact on cognitive performance.

So, maybe it’s time to ditch those study playlists and seek out some music with a bit more bounce.