55 research outputs found
Using music as a signal for biofeedback
Studies on the potential benefits of conveying biofeedback stimulus using a musical signal have appeared in recent years with the intent of harnessing the strong effects that music listening may have on subjects. While results are encouraging, the fundamental question has yet to be addressed, of how combined music and biofeedback compares to the already established use of either of these elements separately. This experiment, involving young adults (N = 24), compared the effectiveness at modulating participants' states of physiological arousal of each of the following conditions: A) listening to pre-recorded music, B) sonification biofeedback of the heart rate, and C) an algorithmically modulated musical feedback signal conveying the subject's heart rate. Our hypothesis was that each of the conditions (A), (B) and (C) would differ from the other two in the extent to which it enables participants to increase and decrease their state of physiological arousal, with (C) being more effective than (B), and both more than (A). Several physiological measures and qualitative responses were recorded and analyzed. Results show that using musical biofeedback allowed participants to modulate their state of physiological arousal at least equally well as sonification biofeedback, and much better than just listening to music, as reflected in their heart rate measurements, controlling for respiration-rate. Our findings indicate that the known effects of music in modulating arousal can therefore be beneficially harnessed when designing a biofeedback protocol
Background Music Stints Creativity: Evidence from Compound Remote Associate Tasks
Background music has been claimed to enhance people’s creativity (Ritter & Ferguson, 2017). In three experiments we investigated the impact of background music on performance of Compound Remote Associate Tasks (CRATs), which are widely thought to tap creativity. Background music with foreign (unfamiliar) lyrics (Experiment 1), instrumental music without lyrics (Experiment 2), and music with familiar lyrics (Experiment 3) all significantly impaired CRAT performance in comparison to quiet background conditions. Furthermore, Experiment 3 demonstrated that background music impaired CRAT performance regardless of whether the music induced a positive mood or whether participants typically studied in the presence of music. The findings challenge the view that background music enhances creativity, and are discussed in terms of an auditory distraction account (interference-by-process; Jones & Tremblay, 2000) and the processing disfluency account (Mehta et al., 2012)
Cognitive and affective judgements of syncopated musical themes
This study investigated cognitive and emotional effects of syncopation, a feature
of musical rhythm that produces expectancy violations in the listener by
emphasising weak temporal locations and de-emphasising strong locations in
metric structure. Stimuli consisting of pairs of unsyncopated and syncopated
musical phrases were rated by 35 musicians for perceived complexity, enjoyment,
happiness, arousal, and tension. Overall, syncopated patterns were more enjoyed,
and rated as happier, than unsyncopated patterns, while differences in perceived
tension were unreliable. Complexity and arousal ratings were asymmetric by
serial order, increasing when patterns moved from unsyncopated to syncopated,
but not significantly changing when order was reversed. These results suggest
that syncopation influences emotional valence (positively), and that while
syncopated rhythms are objectively more complex than unsyncopated rhythms, this
difference is more salient when complexity increases than when it decreases. It
is proposed that composers and improvisers may exploit this asymmetry in
perceived complexity by favoring formal structures that progress from
rhythmically simple to complex, as can be observed in the initial sections of
musical forms such as theme and variations
Interactions Between the Nucleus Accumbens and Auditory Cortices Predict Music Reward Value
Modulating musical reward sensitivity up and down with transcranial magnetic stimulation
Brain networks underlying aesthetic appreciation as modulated by interaction of the spectral and temporal organisations of music
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