Note to competitive men: when indulging in board games this Christmas, consider your background music carefully. Rock music could put you at a significant disadvantage if you are facing off against a female competitor.

Share on Pinterest Cavity Sam, the long-suffering surgical patient.

Image credit: Imperial College London/Royal College of Music

In May 2016, at Imperial Festival in London, United Kingdom, an intriguing experiment was conducted.

Researcher Dr. Daisy Fancourt and her team set out to investigate the effects of rock music on surgical performance.

Rather than have eager but unqualified surgeons operate on live victims, participants were required to play the popular children’s game Operation.

For those unfamiliar with the game, it involves removing tiny plastic anatomical structures from tiny plastic incisions. If the surgical tweezers touch the sides of the incision, Cavity Sam’s nose lights up, a buzzer sounds, and the player loses. A steady hand is key.

In total, 352 people took part in the experiment; all were aged 16 or over and had an average age of 35. None had hearing impairments or previous surgical experience.

As they performed, each participant wore noise-canceling headphones and listened to one of three tracks: Andante, from Sonata for Two Pianos by Mozart, AC/DC’s Thunderstruck, or the sound of an operating room.

The performance of the volunteers was monitored – specifically, the time it took to remove three organs and the number of mistakes made.