Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25: 307-313 (2011)
Authors: Stacey Dobbs, Adrian Furnham, Alastair McClelland
Main point:
Experiments with female secondary school students (n=118) showed that with one exception, all tasks were performed better if the background was silent. Noise is worse than music. Introverts are more affected by the irrelevant sounds.
My thoughts:
A strong study in a compact form. Some concerns: Many studies like that are conducted in a laboratory setting: i.e. the noise and background music is the same for everybody and comes from a CD-player. This is an unrealistic situation. Also, since some may not like the music, the conditions are actually uneven.
Read: Furnham, Gunter, Peterson. Television distraction and the performance of introverts and extroverts.