Study explores background music effects on reading comprehension in Cantonese ESL learners, highlighting auditory distraction.
Background music with lyrics can be a prevalent distraction in environments where people study or read while music plays. However, such effects on reading comprehension across different language contexts remain insufficiently investigated. Guided by the duplex‐mechanism account of auditory distraction and the semantic‐interference hypothesis, the current study explores the graded interaction of background music lyrics and task language on reading comprehension performance among Cantonese ESL learners. Ninety‐five Cantonese ESL learners will be tested on L1 and L2 reading comprehension tasks under a silent condition and three background music conditions: L1, L2, and foreign. We will measure reading comprehension accuracy and the time taken to read each passage. By systematically examining cross‐language auditory distraction in reading comprehension, the current study could potentially refine theoretical accounts of auditory distraction and optimize learning environments for L2 learners.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Ding et al. (2025) studied this question.