Examining the effects of tempo in background music on adolescent learners' reading comprehension performance: employing a multimodal approach

This present study examines the psycho-emotional and psychophysiological effects that variations in the tempo of background music have on learners who are completing reading comprehension tests while being monitored used multi-modal computer technology. Results of seventy-four (N = 74) participants indicated that listening to fast tempo music (150 bpm) predicted lower reading comprehension scores, increased emotional expressions of fear, joy and contempt, and higher skin conductance responses (SCRs). Results indicated that participants were more likely to produce higher scores while listening to slow tempo music (110 bpm), but such findings were not connected to significant differences in facial emotion expressions or psychophysiological responses. Contrasting these were control/no-music conditions in which participants exhibited moderated scores. Results from the fast-tempo condition can possibly be attributed in part to an affective valence of emotions and psychophysiological responses, as the multimodal data suggests that a combined regulatory mechanism may be at play while engaged in a learning task. This paper raises several questions regarding the use and effects of background music in performance-based learning settings and the role of affective-stimuli on cognitive regulation.