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Hello all I have already read This Question, but my question is a bit different.
While working if I listen to the songs in my native language, they become disturbing and hinder my performance.
whereas when I listen to songs in an unknown language like French or Bengali then I easily focus on my work.
Could people explain why is this phenomenon occurs on the scientific level or is this just my own personal interpretation.
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Same thing happens to me when I listen to American Country music. The singers tell interesting stories, and I start to think about the stories rather than the task at hand. It's a distraction pure and simple. I'm filtering out details about the song and relating them to my life at the same time I'm trying to focus on a task.
Our brains work best when we focus on one concrete thing at a time.
My preference is for ambient instrumental background music. It contains much less information to distracts me.
Here are some studies discussing the details.
Aalto University https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170425092429.htm
Stanford University http://news.stanford.edu/2009/08/24/multitask-research-study-082409/
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A HelpScout article sums up the scientific reasons why listening to music with lyrics (that can be understood) can be detrimental to productivity for certain types of tasks:
For low-immersion or physical tasks, music with lyrics can offer huge benefits. But for intensive work, lyrics are especially destructive for focus.
Research shows that "intelligible" chatter---talking that can be clearly heard and understood---is what makes for a distracting environment. Shifting focus to figure out what someone else is saying is the reason why speech is often considered the most troublesome element of a noisy office; in one study, 48% of participants listed intelligible talking as the sound which distracted them the most.
Trying to engage in language-related tasks—such as writing---while listening to lyrics would be akin to holding a conversation while another person talks over you... while also strumming a guitar. Lyrics are often a no-go.
When I read the title, I thought you were talking about Klingon! The word "foreign" might be preferable to "Alien" :-) – Kramii – 2017-06-05T07:53:55.733
@Kramii I used alien and not foreign because the example language I used was Bengali(which is not a foreign language to us). But thanks for the review and I understand that the word alien might be confusing hence I have edited my question and changed the word to unknown. – Anant666 – 2017-06-05T08:02:20.360