The effect of music on the performance of a taskAbstractTo investigate whether music influenced the performance of a task and an experimental technique was used, they were manipulated variables and recorded data.The purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate whether different musical styles influenced the performance of a task. This was a new experiment, based only loosely on previous research dating back to the 19th century. The method involved three groups of participants undertaking a test (solving thirty anagrams). One group had fast music playing in the background, one had slow music and the third performed it silently. Participants were mainly selected through a systematic sample, but this would be transformed into an opportunity sample if some participants did not show up. It was hypothesized that there would be significant differences between a) fast and slow music, b) fast and no music, and c) slow music. and without music. A two-tailed Mann-Whitney U test with a significance level of p=0.05 revealed that all three alternative hypotheses were accepted and the null hypotheses were rejected. The data collected showed that having slow music in the background improved performance on the task compared to performing it in silence, while fast music worsened performance. The implications of this study, its limitations, and suggestions for subsequent studies will be discussed further. Contents Introduction Social influence describes how other people around us can influence our actions. This is particularly relevant in situations where groups of people perform a task together, as discovered by Triplett in one of... half of the paper... Observed value of U = 30 Critical value of U = 23 at a significance level of p? 0.05 and a two-tailed test. Therefore, since 30 > 23 the null hypothesis is rejected.Appendix VI - Mann Whitney U test for the hypothesis twoU = 10 x 10 + 10 (10 + 1)2 - 111.5 = 43.5 U = 43, 5U' = 10 x 10 - 43.5 = 56.5 U' = 56.5 Observed value of U = 43.5 Critical value of U = 23 at a significance level of p?0.05 and two-tailed test . Therefore, since 43.5 > 23 the null hypothesis is rejected.Appendix VII - Mann Whitney U test for the three hypothesisU = 10 x 10 + 10 (10 + 1)2 - 115.5 = 39.5 U = 39.5U' = 10 x 10 - 39.5 = 60.5 U' = 60.5 Observed value of U = 39.5 Critical value of U = 23 at a significance level p? 0.05 and a two-tailed test. Therefore, since 39.5 > 23 the null hypothesis is rejected.