Listening to playful music may improve creativity, according to results of a study published in the medical journal PLOS ONE.
Creativity is an important quality in our complex universe, as it allows us to generate innovative solutions for a number of problems and come up with new ideas. The question of what facilitates creative cognition? Although music has already been shown to benefit cognition, it is unclear how it specifically affects creative cognition.
To study the effect of music on creative cognition, researchers from Radboud University (in the Netherlands) and the University of Technology Sydney (in Australia) brought together 155 participants to complete questionnaires and divide into experimental groups. Each community listened to one of four types of music which were categorized as calming, happy, sad or anxious, based on their emotional value (positive, negative) and arousal (high, low), while a control group listened to the silence.
Once the music started playing, the participants completed various cognitive tasks that tested their creative thinking. Participants who found the most original and useful solutions to a task scored higher in divergent creativity, while participants who found the best possible solution to a task scored higher in convergent creativity.
Music enhances creativity
The researchers found that listening to upbeat music, which they define as classical music with positive, uplifting values, facilitates more divergent creative thinking compared to silence.
This study shows that creative cognition can be enhanced through music. But, further research could explore how different ambient sounds might affect creativity. “Our study may also demonstrate that listening to music could promote creative thinking inexpensively and effectively in different scientific, educational and organizational contexts,” concludes Simone Ritter from Radboud University in the Netherlands and author of the study.
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