Nothing gives more anxiety than a game of ‘Operations’ where your hand-eye coordination and motor skills are tested. As Bart Simpson would say, “D’Oh!”
According to a study on over 350 participants with no prior surgical experience, it proved that rock music prevented males from fully concentrating on their task at hand.
These men and women played the infamous board game as they listened to Mozart and Australian rock music (mixture of indie rock and pop). The study found rock music affects men but not women in the performance of the game.
Meanwhile, women made fewer mistakes and were less distracted by the rock music but took longer to remove the organs.
To our surprise, Mozart decreased the distraction (but only for those that actually liked the music.)
Though the only lesson here is probably that men shouldn’t listen to rock music while fake-operating or playing board games. The study was not tested on actual surgeons so it’s unclear to say whether rock music would indeed affect a real surgeon or any professional in their focused task at hand.
Hey, the next time you’re going one-on-one on a good-ol’ board game you know what to do! You can thank us later.
