The perceived impact of playing music while studying: age and cultural differences Authors: Anastasia Kotsopoulou a ; Susan Hallam b Affiliations: a Psychology Department, City University of Seattle in Athens, Athens, Greece b Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK DOI: 10.1080/03055690903424774 Article Requests: Order Reprints : Request Permissions Published in: Educational Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 4 October 2010 , pages 431 - 440 Publication Frequency: 5 issues per year First Published on: 08 January 2010 To cite this Article: Kotsopoulou, Anastasia and Hallam, Susan (2010) 'The perceived impact of playing music while studying: age and cultural differences', Educational Studies, 36:4, 431 - 440, First published on: 08 January 2010 (iFirst) Abstract Rating scale questionnaires were administered to 600 students in three age groups, 12- 13, 15-16 and 20-21 from Japan, the UK, Greece and the USA. The questionnaires explored the extent of playing music while studying, the kinds of tasks when music was played, the perceived effects of music on studying, the characteristics and types of music played while studying and the factors that influenced the decision to play music while studying. Statistical analysis revealed both commonality and differences in playing music while studying related to both age and culture. Some tasks were more frequently accompanied by music than others. Students reported being able to make decisions about the impact of background music on their performance. The results are discussed in relation to their educational implications. Keywords: background music; homework; age; culture; studying Introduction In the modern western world where music is readily available to everyone through radio, recordings, TV and videos and where recorded background music is routinely played in many public places, the need to understand the effects of music on cognitive processing has become increasingly important. While research has been undertaken on the effects of background music on a variety of cognitive activities, it has been relatively unsystematic and much of it has been inconclusive. This is in part because music can be processed in different ways (see Hallam, Cross, and Thaut 2008 for reviews). While there may be general trends in our responses to stimulating or relaxing music, these are overlaid by individual cognitions which may mediate the immediate effects, for instance, associations of particular pieces of music with particular events or dislike of particular musical genres.