Background Music for Studying: A Naturalistic Experiment on Music Characteristics and User Perception

Despite the advances in context-aware background music (BM) recommendation, automated BM selection for studying-related contexts is still challenging in that the BM has to not only increase users’ activation and task engagement but also avoid distraction. This study investigated how characteristics of BM linked to users’ perceptions on task engagement and distraction. In a one-week naturalistic user experiment, 30 participants performed their everyday learning-related tasks with music selected by a BM player. We captured participants’ learning contexts and perceptions via pop-up surveys and extracted fine-grained acoustic features for each song in their music listening history via audio processing techniques. Our findings support the power of music in fostering positive studying experience (e.g., perceived engagement) and reveal how several BM characteristics may link to perceived engagement in certain (but not all) conditions. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical BM studies and implications for generating personalized and context-sensitive BM selections in music-enhanced learning environments.