Psychology of Music

 

Cognitive Effects of Music-Listening

Passive and active music-listening has been shown to influence behavior and cognition in a number of different situations. One example of the influence of music during passive listening is that of background music. Background music, although intended to be heard is not actively attended to (Musselman, 1974). It is often heard on television and in films, and in many public places, such as restaurants and shops. Background music has shown to have some interesting effects on consumer behavior. For example, North, Hargreaves, and McKendrick (1999) alternated French and German music in a wine store and found that French music led to more purchases of French wine, while German music led to more purchases of German wine. Post-shopping questionnaires were administered to confirm that customers were unaware of this musical influence. In a second wine study, Milliman (1982) found classical music, as opposed to top-forty hits, influenced consumers to purchase more expensive wine. In a later experiment, Milliman (1986) found music tempo to affect restaurants' patrons, where a slower music tempo led to lengthier stays and increases in average dollar amounts charged per customer, a finding which has since been replicated (Caldwell & Hibbert, 1999).

Background music has also been shown to calm pupils with different learning difficulties, including emotional and behavioral difficulties (Hallam & Price, 1998), attention deficit disorder (ADD) (Cripe, 1986), and mental retardation (Gregoire, 1984; Reardon & Bell, 1970). Background music was shown to have a calming effect, rendering the students less stressed and more relaxed, which in turn allowed them to be less aggressive, and more productive and cooperative (Giles, 1991). This suggests that appropriate background music may have an indirect consequence on cognition, allowing students to focus better on relevant and immediate tasks.

Active music-listening has also shown to effect cognition and its influences may be seen as more direct. For example, music was shown to influence the perception of time during a music-listening task. This is because the perceived duration of a time period can seem longer or shorter depending on what information fills the time period interval (Kellaris & Kent, 1992). Psychologists suggest that the more information presented or processed in a given time the longer the perceived time interval will be (Fraisse, 1984; Ornstein, 1969; Zakay, 1989). To test this in a musical context Kellaris and Kent (1992) asked university students to listen to three types of music (major, minor, and atonal) then to estimate the time period for each music sample. In general, all music led to an overestimation of perceived duration. More specifically, major key music gave the longest duration estimations and the greatest disparity between actual and perceived times. Atonal music produced the shortest duration estimation, with the smallest disparity between times, while minor music's estimations fell in between that of major and atonal music.

Another effect of active music-listening which has received considerable attention is the claim that music can enhance reasoning capabilities. In a seminal study by Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky (1993) college students showed increased scores on spatial-reasoning tests for 10-15 minutes after listening to 10 minutes of music by Mozart (Piano Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K448, movements I and II). Here, have a listen...

 

 

 

 

A typical spatial-reasoning question asked an individual to mentally unfold a piece of paper that had been folded over a number of times and then cut. The student was asked to select the final unfolded paper shape from a selection of answers. The students who listened to Mozart performed better than those listening to silence or relaxation instructions. Rauscher and Shaw (1998) suggested this effect to be based on the trion model (Leng & Shaw, 1991), which explains that neurons involved in processing complex music are activated when listening to Mozart, and in turn prime listeners for spatial-temporal tasks.

This research received a great deal of commercial and media attention (Holden, 1994; NBC News, 1994), suggesting there to be a "Mozart Effect". Don Campbell (1997) even popularized the idea that "listening to Mozart makes you smarter", which encouraged parents to buy Mozart CDs for their children. Although Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky (1995) replicated the Mozart Effect, as well as others (Nantais & Schellenberg, 1999; Rideout & Taylor, 1997) the effect is not entirely conclusive. That is, many attempts have been made to replicate and expand these findings without much success (Carstens, Huskins, & Hounshell, 1995; Dalla Bella, Dunlp, Dawe, Humphrey, & Peretz, 1999; Kenealy & Monsef, 1994; Newman, Rosenbach, Burns, Latimer, Matocha, & Vogt, 1995; Steele, Ball, & Runk, 1997; Stough, Kerkin, Bates, & Mangan, 1994; Weeks, 1996).

Many have suggested the Mozart effect to be based on the arousal hypothesis, where listening to music produces an optimal level of adrenalin in the brain and as such increases cognitive performance compared to those listening to silence or instructions (Steele, Bass, & Crook, 1999). Other hypotheses exist as well, including the mood hypothesis, which suggests that a strong positive mood (as induced by Mozart's music) heightens arousal and in turn increases spatial tasks performance (Rauscher & Ribar, 1999; Steele, Ball, Crook, 1999), and the preference hypothesis, where spatial scores are enhanced for those who are in a preferred experimental condition (listening to Mozart or hearing a Stephen King horror story) (Nantais & Schellenberg, 1999). Of these three explanations the arousal hypothesis has received the most support. For more detailed information on the Mozart Effect check out this blog here.

 

 

 

 

---

References

Caldwell, C. & Hibbert, S. (1999). Play that one again: The effect of music tempo on consumer behaviour in a restaurant. European Advances in Consumer Research, 4, 58-62.

Campbell, D. (1997). The Mozart effect: Tapping the power of music to heal the body, strengthen the mind, and unlock the creative spirit. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Carstens, C. B., Huskins, E., & Hounshell, G. W. (1995). Listening to Mozart may not enhance performance on the revised Minnesota paper form board test. Psychological Reports, 77 111-114.

Cripe, F. F. (1986). Rock music as therapy for children with attention deficit disorder: An exploratory study. Journal of Music Therapy, 23, 303-7.

Dalla Bella, S., Dunlop, T., Dawe, L., Humphrey, K., & Peretz, I. (1999, April). The Mozart effect revisited. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, Washington, DC.

Friasse, P. (1984). Perception and estimation of time. Annual Review of Psychology, 35, 1-36.

Giles, M. (1991). A little background music please. Special Children, 15

Gregoire, M. A. (1984). Music as a prior condition to task performance. Journal of Music Therapy, 21, 133-145.

Hallam, S. & Price, J. (1998). Can the use of background music improve the behaviour and academic performance of children with emotional and behavioural difficulties? British Journal of Special Education, 25(2), 88-90.

Hetland, L. (2000). Listening to music enhances spatial-temporal reasoning: Evidence for the "Mozart Effect". Journal of Aesthetic Education, 34, 105-148.

Holden, C. (1994). Smart music. Science, 266, 968.

Kellaris, J. J. & Kent, R. J. (1992). The influence of music on consumers' temporal perception: Does time fly when you're having fun? Journal of Consumer Psychology, 1(4), 365-376.

Kenealy, P. & Monsef, A. (1994). Music and IQ tests. The Psychologists, 7, 346.

Leng, X. & Shaw, G. L. (1991). toward a neural theory of higher brain function using music as a window. Concepts in Neuroscience, 2, 229-258.

Milliman, R. E. (1982). Using background music to affect behavior of supermarket shoppers. Journal of Marketing, 46, (Summer), 86-91.

Milliman, R. E. (1986). The influence of background music on the behavior of restaurant patrons. Journal of Consumer Research, 13, (September), 286-289.

Musselman, J. (1974). The uses of music: An introduction to music in contemporary life. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Nantais, K. M. & Schellenberg, E. G. (1999). The Mozart effect: An artifact of preference. Psychological Science, 10, 370-373.

NBC News (Producer). (1994, Sptember 1). Dateline NBC. Livingston, NJ: Burrelle's Information Services.

Newman, J., Rosenbach, J. H., Burns, K. L., Latimer, B. C., Matocha, H. R., & Vogt, E. E. (1995). An experimental test of "the Mozart effect": Does listening to his music imporve spatial ability? Perceptual and Motor Skills, 81, 1379-1387.

North, A. C., Hargreaves, D. J., & McKendrick, J. (1999). The influence of in-sotre music on wine selections. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 271-276.

Ornstein, R. E. (1969). On the experience of time. New York: Penguin.

Rauscher & Ribar (1999). The Mozart effect: Discounting arousal (Unpublished paper, Oshkosh, University of Wisconsin).

Rauscher, F. H. & Shaw, G. L. (1998). Key components of the Mozart effect. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 86, 835-841.

Rauscher, F. H. & Shaw, G. L., & Ky, C. (1993). Music and spatial task performance. Nature, 365, 611.

Rauscher, F. H. & Shaw, G. L., & Ky, C. (1995). Listening to Mozart enhances spatial-temporal reasoning: Towards a neurophysiological basis. Neuroscience Letters, 185, 44-47.

Reardon, D. & Bell, G. (1970). Effects of sedative and stimulative music on activity levels of severely retarded boys. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 75, 156-159.

Rideout, B. E. & Taylor, J. (1997). Enhanced spatial performance following 10 minutes exposure ot music: A replication. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 85, 112-114.

Savan, A. (1999). The effect of background music on learning. Psychology of Music, 27, 138-146.

Steele, K. M., Ball, T. N. & Crook, M. (1999). The mystery of the Mozart effect: Failure to replicate. Psychological Science, 10(4), 366-369.

Steele, K. M., Ball, T. N., & Runk, R. (1997). Listening to Mozart does not enhance backwards digit span performance. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 84, 1179-1184.

Stough, C. Kerkins, B., Bates, T., & Mangan, G. (1994). Music and spatial IQ. Personality and Individual Differences, 17, 695.

Weeks, S. P. (1996). The effect of music on abstract/visual reasoning performance in high school music and non-music students. Dissertation Abstracts International, 56(9), 3408A. (UMI Dissertation Services No. 9600110).

Zakay, D. (1989). Subjective time adn attentional resource allocation: An integrated model of time estimation. In I. Levin & D. Zakay (Eds.), Time and human cognition. Amsterdam: Elsevier.