A few weeks ago I heard about a really interesting study on
the radio (I suppose this is becoming a bit of a redundant theme in my posts). Primarily motivated by the experience of many
students, some social scientists had undertaken to answer the question: why is
it that many people seem to be more productive, creative, or efficient when
working in coffee shops than at home, in the library, or in the office? Personally, I've always thought it was a
combination of pretentious hipster fashion with the need for a little caffeine
boost, as I've never really been quite as comfortable working in coffee shops
as in other places. But certainly,
having been in grad school for over six years now, I have many friends that
spend a very large amount of time in coffee shops, and so I was motivated to
look deeper.
As it turns out, the study was readily available in an
open-access journal, so if you're a motivated reader and want to get right to
the details, just click this link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665048
If you want my version, read on.
To start with, the authors hypothesized that there is some
sort of moderate-optimal level of ambient noise for people engaging in
'creative cognition' (a.k.a., original thinking). The supposed mechanism behind this is that
the increased difficulty of processing information, amidst distraction, will
widen their focus, thereby increasing the likelihood of making abstract
connections. At low noise levels, people
are more highly focused, and although this may be good for some tasks, it
hampers creativity. At higher noise
levels, there is essentially a processing-overload effect, where it becomes
difficult to focus on anything but the noise.
This made pretty good sense to me; although I don't work in
coffee shops very often, I do find that I work more efficiently and get more
done when there are other people working in the lab/office with me. I've always thought that it was sort of a
social pressure thing – I'm less likely to allow myself to be distracted if
other people are working hard around me – but it's entirely possible there is
also a creativity boost from the manic key-typing sounds and other low-level
office noise. But then again, the
presence of others may also lead to a simple widening of focus, as we tend to
carry on sporadic conversations as we work.
I think I have an even better widening of focus when I'm in
the shower or getting ready for bed – that's when all the really great ideas
hit!
Anyways, the study went a little beyond what the typical
psychological assessment of noise on work habits would have gone: the noise
they used wasn't static, buzzing, or a dull tone, it was the ambient noise from
a restaurant blended with a few traffic sounds.
The authors created these tracks at three noise levels – low (50 dB),
moderate (70 dB), and high (85 dB) – or didn't play the noise at all (control
group), meanwhile having the subjects (65 undergraduate students) complete a
Remote Associates Test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Associates_Test).
What they found was that, on average, students answered more
questions correctly when they were subjected to a moderate level of noise. The high-noise students answered the fewest
questions, while the low noise and control (no noise) groups were intermediate. Apparently, high noise levels also reduced
student response time, whereas there was no difference in response time among
moderate, low, and control groups.
After this, the authors did a second experiment involving a
test of the students' ability to generate creative ideas. Again, they found that high noise inhibited
this ability both in terms of the number and quality of ideas, and although
there was no difference in the number of ideas between low and moderate noise,
the moderate group had the best (most creative) ideas, on average.
These authors were super-thorough, following up with a
number of physiological tests (to better understand the mechanisms) and
additional experiments (to confirm the breadth of the influence), but all still
pointed towards the original hypothesis: moderately increased stress levels
lead to heightened creativity.
So fellow writers, students, and creative people, my advice
to you is this: play some music, work with others around, take a shower, work
in a coffee shop, of plant yourself firmly on one of those benches in the
hallway of your college if you are working on something that requires creative
focus. I'm not sure if this includes
math problems or coding, but I imagine that you'll get much more done on your
papers, or get higher marks on them, if you have a little noise in the
background. It may not work for all of
us, but I can say it often does for me, and it's definitely worth a try.
