How musical selection impacts the performance of the interaction with the computer

In this busy society of ours people push their limits to work better and more in order to remain competitive with their peers. Nonetheless, working longer hours does not necessarily improves productivity nor performance. In order to prevent the negative consequences of this increasing trend, the evolution of performance throughout the day of work should be more closely monitored. This could avoid undesirable states or even breakdowns, which have social and economical implications. In this work we measure user performance through their interaction with the computer. We monitor its evolution during a day of work and how di erent types of music may increase or decrease its natural daily degradation. We conclude that the relationship between types of music and its e ects is not universal and depends, among other things, on the musical pro le of the individual. A prototype for a distributed music recommendation service is presented that suggests musics at an individual and group level, based on user musical pro les and objectives.This work is part-funded by ERDF - European Regional Development Fund through the COMPETE Programme (operational programme for competitiveness) and by National Funds through the FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028980 (PTDC/EEI-SII/1386/2012)