Instruction: answer questions 36 to 40 based on the following text.

Music Enabling Cognitive Work

1. people listen to music while working or studying. In the early-twentieth century
2. music was sometimes broadcast in factories to increase productivity and morale, whereas in the
3. twenty-first century individualized music listening is the norm because of mobile technologies,
4. and an increase in office – and computer-based work. A study indicated that employees
5. listened to music for of their working time, generally while carrying out low-demand,
6. solitary tasks. Workers reported that it improved concentration, reduced stress, relieved
7. boredom, and was a way of creating private space in the public office. Similarly, adults and
8. children frequently listen to music while studying, because they believe it increases focus (by
9. blocking noise and stopping their mind from wondering), reduces boredom and increases
10. motivation (by helping “pass the time”), and reduces stress and anxiety (via mood regulation).
11. However, the evidence is contradictory as to whether music is always beneficial to
12. cognitive tasks. Some studies show that it may benefit mental tasks under certain circumstances,
13. revealing improvements for attention, memory, mental arithmetic and learning. Other research
14. suggests that music increases cognitive demands in a way which may be bad for tasks that require
15. maintaining order information in the focal task. Music’s effects on a concurrent task are dependent
16. on contextual factors, including the cognitive demands of the particular task, individual
17. differences in cognitive capacities and characteristics of the music.
18. Music does seem beneficial for creative tasks. Research on the effects of mood on
19. creativity suggest that creativity is enhanced by positive, activating mood states, which have an
20. “approach motivation,” i.e. you do something because you think something good will happen.
21. Meta-analyses indicate that these mood states may have a variety of effects: Positive moods may
22. influence insight and originality by increasing cognitive flexibility (as the ability to switch quickly
23. from thinking about one dimension to another, like color to shape, and to think about more than
24. one concept at the same time), while other moods may impact by increasing cognitive persistence
25. (focused attention).

(Avaliable in: ASHLEY, R. and TIMMERS, R. (Editors) The Routledge Companion to Music Cognition. New York: Routledge, 2017 – text adapted specially for this test).