On the behavior of Massey products under field extension

Abstract: We show that global vanishing of Massey products on a commutative differential graded algebra is not invariant under field extension. Non-vanishing triple Massey products remain non-vanishing upon field extension, while higher Massey products can generally vanish. If the field being extended is algebraically closed, all non-vanishing Massey products remain non-vanishing on a finite type commutative differential graded algebra.