A State-space Investigation of Impact of Music on Cognitive Performance during a Working Memory Experiment

Stress has effects on productivity and performance. Poor stress management may lead to reduced productivity and performance. Non-invasive actuators such as music have the potential to effectively regulate stress. In this study, using a state-space approach, we obtain a performance state to investigate the performance during a working memory task while playing two different types of music in the background. In our experiments, participants performed a working memory task while listening to calming and vexing music of their choice. We utilize the binary correct/incorrect response and the continuous reaction time of the response from the participants to quantify the performance. The state-space quantification reveals that vexing music has a statistically significant positive impact on the obtained performance state. This indicates the feasibility of designing non-invasive closed-loop systems to regulate stress for maximizing performance and productivity.