Video game music: Annoying, dangerous, colorful — or all of the above?. My son Jim’s favorite game, World of Warcraft, only works on my computer, which usually resides in the kitchen. Inevitably, Jim’s often playing his game while Greta and I are making dinner, and I have to say, the most annoying thing about the game isn’t the violence or the sound effects — it’s the background music. We’re constantly asking him to turn the volume down so we don’t have to listen to that dull, repetitive music.
So don’t gamers find music annoying, too? I know when I’m indulging in my one guilty pleasure — computer golf — the room must be absolutely silent. Music is the worst, because rather than hitting the ball according to the rhythm of the swing, I tend to lapse into the rhythm of the music, and instead of heading straight down the fairway on the Chateau Whistler course, my ball ends up careening off course into a field of neck-high nettles, or ricocheting off a pine tree and into a pristine mountain brook.
Indeed, in at least one instance (a racing game studied by M. Yamada in 2001), researchers found a negative correlation between certain types of music and performance on the game. But in both this case and my anecdotal example of playing video golf, we’re talking about music that’s not specifically designed to accompany a game.
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[Cognitive Daily]
11:13:22 AM 
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