| Summary: | Listening to music has been shown to effectively induce emotional responses and to affect task performance. Recent research has mainly focused on music’s effects on the accuracy of performance in complex cognitive tasks. However, music’s effects on the speed of repetitive task performance have rarely been studied under controlled conditions. This study seeks to address this gap by looking at how altering specific characteristics of music (musical mode and tempo) induces different emotions along two dimensions (valence and arousal) and subsequently, how these alterations affect repetitive task performance speed. One hundred and twenty non-musician participants were recruited for this study. A between-subjects design using classical piano pieces with five conditions (major-fast, major-slow, minor-fast, minor-slow, control) was used. Measurements of emotional valence and arousal states after listening to music were taken, and the speed of completing a repetitive task while listening to music was also calculated. Results showed that listening to major and minor music effectively induced positive and negative valence respectively, but that valence had no effect on repetitive task performance speed. Results also showed that listening to fast and slow music did not induce significantly different arousal levels but there were marginally significant effects of arousal on task performance speed. Findings could be applied in both work and home settings to alleviate boredom and boost productivity, but more research is still required to ascertain the relationship between listening to music and the speed of repetitive task performance.
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