很多人喜歡在學習或工作時播放背景音樂，認為能幫助改善情緒、激發創造力，然而這種做法可能適得其反。英國和瑞典科學家的一項研究發現，背景音樂非但對發揮創造力無用，反而會造成破壞性影響。
From Mozart to Metallica, tons of people enjoy listening to various types of music while they paint, write, or draw. Many believe that music helps boost creativity, but an international study conducted by English and Swedish researchers is challenging that notion.
從莫扎特到金屬樂隊，無數人在寫作或繪畫時喜歡聽各種音樂。許多人認為音樂有助於激發創造力，但一項由英國和瑞典研究人員進行的國際研究正在否定這一觀點。
Psychologists from Lancaster University, The University of G?vle, and The University of Central Lancashire say that their findings indicate music actually stymies creativity.
蘭卡斯特大學、耶夫勒大學和中央蘭開夏大學的心理學家表示，他們的發現表明音樂實際上阻礙了創造力。
To come to their conclusions, researchers had participants complete verbal insight problems designed to inspire creativity while sitting in a quiet room, and then again while music played in the background. They found that background music 「significantly impaired」 the participants』 ability to complete tasks associated with verbal creativity.
研究人員讓參與者在安靜的房間裡完成了一些旨在激發創造力的語言洞察問題，然後讓他們在播放背景音樂時再做一次，從而得出了這一結論。研究人員發現，背景音樂「顯著地削弱」了參與者完成與語言創造力有關的任務的能力。
The research team also tested background noises such as those commonly heard in a library, but found that such noises had no impact on subjects』 creativity.
研究小組還測試了背景噪音，比如圖書館裡經常聽到的噪音，但發現這些噪音對受試者的創造力沒有影響。
The tasks were simple word games. For example, participants were given three words, such as dress, dial, and flower. Then, they were asked to find a single word associated with all three that could be combined to form a common phrase or word. The single word, in this case, would be 「sun」 (sundress, sunflower, etc).
參與者需要完成的任務是一些簡單的文字遊戲。例如，給參與者三個單詞，如dress（裙子）、dial（錶盤）和flower（花）。然後，他們被要求找到一個與所有三個詞相關的單詞，這三個詞都可以與其組合成一個常見短語或單詞。而在這個例題裡，這個單詞應該是sun（太陽），可以組成sundress（太陽裙）、sunflower（向日葵）等詞。
Participants completed the tasks in either a quiet room, or while exposed to three different types of music; music with unfamiliar lyrics, instrumental music, or music with familiar lyrics.
參與者要麼在一個安靜的房間裡完成任務，要麼一邊做題一邊聽三種不同類型的音樂：歌詞不熟悉的音樂、器樂演奏或歌詞熟悉的音樂。
"We found strong evidence of impaired performance when playing background music in comparison to quiet background conditions,」 says co-author Dr. Neil McLatchie of Lancaster University.
這項研究的合著者、蘭卡斯特大學的尼爾·麥克拉奇博士表示：「我們發現了強有力的證據來證明這一事實：與安靜的背景條件相比，播放背景音樂會使人們的表現受到不利的影響。」
Dr. McLatchie and his colleagues theorize that music interferes with the verbal working memory processes of the brain, hindering creativity. Also, as far as the library background noises having seemingly no effect, the study’s authors believe that was the case because library noises create a 「steady state」 environment that doesn’t disrupt concentration.
麥克拉奇博士和他的同事認為，音樂幹擾了大腦的語言工作記憶過程，阻礙了創造力。至於為什麼圖書館的背景噪音似乎沒有影響，該研究的作者認為，這是因為圖書館噪音創造了一個「穩定狀態」的環境，不會干擾注意力。
It’s worth mentioning that even familiar music with well known lyrics impaired participants』 creativity, regardless of whether or not it elicited a positive reaction, or whether participants typically studied or created while listening to music.
值得一提的是，即使是參與者熟知歌詞的音樂也會削弱其創造力，不管它是否引起了積極的反應，也不管參與者是否在聽音樂時學習或創作。
"To conclude, the findings here challenge the popular view that music enhances creativity, and instead demonstrate that music, regardless of the presence of semantic content (no lyrics, familiar lyrics or unfamiliar lyrics), consistently disrupts creative performance in insight problem solving,」 the study reads.
研究報告寫道：「總而言之，這些研究結果挑戰了人們普遍認為音樂能夠增強創造力的觀點，反而證明了無論音樂的內容是什麼（有沒有歌詞、歌詞熟不熟悉），音樂總是會干擾人們解決洞察力問題的創造性表現。」
semantic:adj. 語義的；語義學的
The study is published in the journal?Applied Cognitive Psychology.
該研究發表在《應用認知心理學》期刊上。阿