Does music with lyrics make reading harder, especially when the lyrics and text are in the same language?

Details

Many studies have examined background music and reading comprehension, but little is known about how lyrics in a native language (L1) versus a second language (L2) affect college students’ reading comprehension.

This study used a mixed experimental design with college students in East China. Listening habits—non-listeners or listeners—and music type—L1 (Mandarin) pop music, L2 (English) pop music, or no music—were between-participants variables. Text language, L1 or L2, was a within-participants variable.

The 90 participants, including 50 females, were screened into non-listeners (n = 45) and listeners (n = 45). They were then randomly assigned to the Mandarin pop music group (n = 30), English pop music group (n = 30), or no music group (n = 30).

Music with lyrics negatively affected reading comprehension performance compared with no music. Chinese/English reading comprehension declined more when the pop music was in the same language as the written text. As expected, non-listeners were more negatively affected by music with lyrics than listeners. In both listening-habit groups, average reading comprehension accuracy was lowest with native-language lyrics.

Overall, the findings indicate that listening to pop music with lyrics reduces reading comprehension performance. However, background music caused much less distraction among students who commonly listened to music while reading. The study supports the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction.