Data drawn from the reading comprehension test results show that introverts did not perform as well as extraverts in the presence of background music. However, the theory that extraverts" performance would increase when accompanied by music was not supported by the evidence. This corresponds with research by A. Furnham et al. (Furnham & Allass, 1999; Furnham & Strbac, 2002; Furnham & Stanley, 2003) stating that extravert performance is not hindered as much as an introvert's in the presence of music, yet it is not helped by background noise either. .
Findings from A. Furnham and K. Allass (1999) support that in complex mental tasks, such as reading comprehension, music is likely to "act detrimentally as a distraction" (p. 28). Although findings from their experiments show no significant increase or decrease in levels of distraction between introverts and extraverts, factors such as musical preference and familiarity have been assumed to play a role in the results. Since all the subjects participating in this experiment were undergraduates in college and the music selections were categorized as popular, it appears that the overall liking of the pieces contributed to the outcomes. However, it should be noted that even with this familiarity, background music did not improve concentration during the reading comprehension tests.
A. Furnham and L. Strbac (2002) conducted research on background music's effects on reading comprehension, mathematical, and prose recall tests. It was hypothesized that silent conditions would provide optimal results for performance in both introverts and extraverts. This theory was reinforced by the data that illustrated "worsened performance of introverts compared to extraverts in the presence of background noise on a complex cognitive task, namely reading comprehension" (p. 214). Questions then arise as to why there were significant differences for only the reading comprehension task as opposed to mathematical and prose recall tasks.
