Abstract
This aim of this research was to investigate whether or not different musical conditions would either hinder or improve ones performance on cognitive style tests. It aimed to test these using sub-groups such as gender, music tastes and education. The independent variables in this case were rock and classical music, and silence, while the dependent variable was the number of correct answers. This mixed design research aims to build on previous research such as that carried out by Furnham, Bradley, and Allas, by using a larger sample size of 50 participants and different independent variables. All three hypotheses were rejected as no significant difference was found in any of the three variables. The experiment did have its flaws however in that there were such issues as lack of mathematics knowledge and its lack of being conducted in a longitudinal fashion.
