Linguist Susanne Brouwer and a group of her students conducted three experiments to see how well people understand each other when music is playing in the background. For this study, she used a selection of Katy Perry songs, including Simlish versions of the hits; the language used in the popular computer game The Sims. It appears that people understand each other less well when the English versions are playing compared to the Simlish versions. People seem to understand each other the best with the instrumental versions of her songs. Brouwer and her team will be publishing their research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.