The effect of the tempo of music on concentration in a simulated driving experience

Abstract

Performing multiple tasks simultaneously is proposed to have an influence on the amount of mental resources available for attending to incoming stimuli’s. Concentration is presumed to be divided between focussing on driving (incoming visual information) while attending to incoming auditory information. The study aimed to investigate the influence of the tempo of music on concentration and driving ability by means of simulation. Concentration was measured by driving errors (DE) whereas driving ability was measured by lap-times (LT) and elicited behaviour. Four treatment conditions were utilised; that is a no-music (NM) control condition, low tempo music (LTM)-, medium tempo music (MTM)- and high tempo music (HTM) treatment conditions. Results found that the tempo of music does not have an influence on concentration; however, significant results were obtained indicating that the tempo of music does have an influence on driving behaviour.