In the Doctor Maboul game, men listening to rock made more mistakes than players enjoying Mozart or immersed in an operating room atmosphere.
The benefits of music are well established. It soothes our anxieties, promotes concentration and stimulates our performance. But to benefit from its effects, the choice of music is crucial.
British researchers have shown that men should avoid rock music if they want to win a game of board games. This wacky conclusion was published in the Medical Journal of Australia.
This work was carried out by Imperial College London (Great Britain) and the Royal College of Music with 352 participants at the Imperial Festival, a scientific event organized by the London university. The researchers invited them to play a game of Maboul Doctor, a game in which the player pretends to be a surgeon and where he must carefully and precisely remove objects from his patient’s body. If the clamp touches the body, the patient starts screaming.
rock or classic
The volunteers performed their part with headphones over their ears in which Mozart’s Sonata for two pianos, Thunderstruck by the rock group AC/DC or an operating theater atmosphere was broadcast. For their experiment, the researchers timed the time it took the patient to remove 3 objects as well as the number of errors made.
It took an average of 1 minute for the men to complete their task. Men who listened to AC/DC were slower and made more mistakes than their peers who enjoyed Mozart or were immersed in an operating room (36 faults vs. 28).
The women, on the other hand, seem unfazed. None of the 3 sounds played in their ears made any difference. Generally, they took more than a minute to operate on their patient, but they made fewer mistakes than their male counterparts.
Researchers don’t know why AC/DC’s song kept gamers so distracted. They speculate that rock music causes more auditory stress in men than in women. They also suggest that musical tastes may have played a role. The volunteers reported a greater appetite for Mozart than the Australian rock band.
A funny study for a serious subject
“While this study is clearly humorous, and done in our spare time, it fits into our work on the effect of music on our performance, particularly in the medical and surgical field,” says Dr. Daisy Fancourt, responsible for the works.
The researcher explains that three-quarters of operating theaters broadcast music during interventions. But experts are still divided on these beneficial effects. However, studies have shown that music-loving surgeons operate with greater speed and precision. But at the same time, the literature indicates that one out of 4 anesthesiologists sees their vigilance drop because of the music.
“One of our lines of research is to understand how music can boost the performance of an athlete at the Olympic Games or someone who has to give an important speech. In any case, this study suggests that men who operate or who play a board game should avoid rock music,” concludes Dr. Fancourt amused.
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