Music

Most of us look at art while hearing something, so Ozger and Choudhury’s study is generally useful.  The research duo report that college students’ moods “were measured via The Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT) after a presentation of Francisco Goya's Black Paintings. There were three randomly assigned groups with a narration about the artist's life and the significance of his paintings (group N), classical music (group M) and both (group NM). Participant's art knowledge was also assessed, as determined by the Vienna Art Interest and Art Knowledge Questionnaire (VAIAK).

Kourtesis and teammates evaluated the experience of listening to music virtually.  They report that “participants performed an assessment four times, once before the rides (baseline), and then once after each ride (3 rides). In each ride either Calming, or Joyful, or No Music was played. During each ride, linear and angular accelerations took place to induce cybersickness in the participants.

How does background music influence stress and our performance on manual tasks?   Felszeghy and teammates set out to answer this question by studying dental students listening to what was categorized as “slow background music”: “the music reduced stress but also increased motivation to learn and practice. . . . Time use and quality of cavity preparation were enhanced.

Merrill and associates studied musical preferences; it is likely that their findings are applicable more broadly. The investigators determined via an online survey that “analysis identified two profiles of explanatory strategies for disliked music. The highbrow profile included reasons such as the music being Too Simple, or Not Authentic, having No Impact on the listener, and a perceived Social Incongruence, and was mainly associated with a dislike of German schlager, traditional music, and pop.

Isaacson and team evaluated how perceptions of paintings are affected by music played as they are viewed. The researchers report that study participants “were asked to choose one of three realistic or abstract paintings, evaluate their perceptual characteristics on five semantic differential rating scales and answer three questions. The participants were then given a choice of three musical pieces (pre-selected to suit each painting) to match their chosen painting. Our findings revealed a significant change in three of the five scales.

Shank and teammates probed listener responses to music after attributing its composition to either artificial intelligence or a human.  The researchers report that “participants listened to excerpts of electronic and classical music and rated how much they liked the excerpts. . . . Participants . . . liked music less that they thought was composed by an AI.” These results can likely be applied more broadly.

Howlin, Stapleton, and Rooney studied how music can be used to reduce pain, collecting information from adults experiencing acute pain.  They report that “Music is increasingly being recognised as an adjuvant treatment for pain management. Music can help to decrease the experience of both chronic and experimental pain. . . . in naturalistic settings, the present study examined the degree to which cognitive agency (i.e., perceived choice in music), music features (i.e., complexity), and individual levels of musical sophistication were related to perceived pain. . . .

Fukuie and colleagues probed how hearing particular sorts of music influences cognitive performance, and their findings may be complicated to apply in group settings, but not solo use ones.  The investigators report that “Hearing a groove rhythm (GR), which creates the sensation of wanting to move to the music, can also create feelings of pleasure and arousal in people, and it may enhance cognitive performance, as does exercise, by stimulating the prefrontal cortex. Here, we examined the hypothesis that GR enhances executive function (EF). . . .

Birman and Ferguson increase our understanding of the cognitive effects of listening to music.  They report that their study participants “were randomly assigned to four different groups: silence (no music), classical music, rock, and the final group could choose any genre they liked. The California Verbal Learning Test—Second Edition (CVLT-II) was administered to assess participant’s memory. Anxiety was also assessed before and after the memory test to see whether the music had any effect.

Santangelo and associates studied the effects of hearing music on decisions made.  They determined that “music is frequently played while we are engaged in other activities that rely on decision-making (e.g., driving). . . . We analyzed response times and accuracy from more than 100-thousand decisions and mapped the effects of music onto decision-process components with a mechanistic model of decision-making. We found evidence . . . . [that] decisions—across domains—were faster but less accurate with music. . . .