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'Work flow' music designed to improve performance does just that

work music
Credit: Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

A small team of neuroscientists, psychologists and musicologists affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. reports that music created specifically to enhance work performance does just that. In their study, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, the group asked volunteers to conduct a specific type of work assignment while listening to various kinds of music.

Prior research has strongly suggested that listening to music can alter . More recently, some in the have claimed that listening to the right kind of music while working can improve . Work flow playlists have begun popping up on music distribution sites, claiming that users who listen to them while working will see improvements in concentration, mood, and indirectly, performance of their work.

For this new study, the research team tested these assertions by recruiting 196 adult who listened to various types of music (and office background noise), including work flow playlists, while conducting work tasks () that could be used to test performance.

The research team found that the only type of music that helped performance was work flow. They suggested the increase in performance was due to mood enhancement and improvements in focus, which were due to the music reducing performance drops due to distractions.

'Work flow' music improves performance
Effect of audio condition on flanker task RT over time. Credit: PLOS ONE (2025). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316047

They also found that listening to work flow music improved . Those volunteers who reported the biggest boost in their mood also demonstrated the best performance improvements and saw the biggest gains in reaction speeds.

The research team suggests that the results demonstrate the arousal-modal theory, which suggests that people who feel better tend to perform better at work tasks regardless of type. Their work also shows that the people behind the creation of work flow music have done their homework in identifying the sounds and arrangements that can take attentional focus away from the music toward the task at hand. Such music, they note, tends to have a strong rhythm, simple tonality, moderate dynamism and broad spectral energy.

More information: Joan Orpella et al, Effects of music advertised to support focus on mood and processing speed, PLOS ONE (2025).

Journal information: PLoS ONE

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Citation: 'Work flow' music designed to improve performance does just that (2025, February 14) retrieved 28 April 2025 from /news/2025-02-music.html
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