Can Different Types of Music Lead to Different Physiological Responses?

Problem Statement

Music can strongly modulate the autonomic functions of the human body, such as heart rate, blood pressure, and skin conductance. These measurable physiological responses offer a window into the body’s reaction to auditory stimuli. Although music is used in therapeutic settings to reduce stress, improve focus, and promote relaxation, little is known about how it works. The issue is that different musical genres, such as jazz, rock, and classical, have different effects on physiological markers: Can Different Types of Music Lead to Different Physiological Responses?

Understanding how these genres affect these markers will help optimize musical interventional parameters for music therapy and performance and stress management. Furthermore, while research interest in music-based interventions has grown rapidly in recent years, variation in response persists. Tempo, rhythm, and listener characteristics are key factors during music listening, but there is a lack of understanding of the relationships between each of these factors.

This paper investigates the physiological responses of heart rate, skin conductance, and blood pressure to different music genres. This research will contribute to the nascent discipline of music psychology and inform applications in wellness and therapy.

Literature Review

Existing Research

According to the existing research, music genres have strong effects on physiological responses. Kulinski et al. (2021) compared the effects of classical, rock, and jazz music on the body, noting heart rate and blood pressure. The study observed that classical music reduced both formants as expected due to the soothing qualities of the music.

As rock music continued to increase arousal-related changes such as an elevated heart rate and skin conductivity, Jazz was found to have a mixed result of relaxation and stimulation. As with physiological activation, slow tempos in low-stakes situations deranged heart rate and enhanced mood, but only in high-stakes conditions did accelerated tempos do the same (Tervaniemi et al., 2021).

Lin et al. (2023) furthered these findings by investigating the effects of tempo on cognitive arousal and physiological responses. They demonstrated that fast-tempo music improved attention and arousal, possibly elevating heart rate and skin conductance. Altogether, these studies indicate the role performed by music in changing physiological conditionings; genre and tempo are some examples of these factors. However, factors such as methodology differences, the context in which music is listened to, or an individual’s choice make these effects harder.

Research Designs

The physiological studies of music have considered different research designs. Kulinski et al. (2021) conducted an experimental design with control over the participants, exposing them to specific genres while measuring physiological markers before, during, and after exposure. This results in high levels of internal validity, and therefore, the changes in the subjects’ rate of heartbeat and blood pressure can be exclusively attributed to the music. Tervaniemi et al. (2021) used an exploratory design to examine how listening environments modulated music’s effects.

This design provided valuable ecological insights but did not have the control needed to establish causality. Lin et al. (2023) recently described a randomized controlled trial incorporating the features of the experimental approach, giving the researchers more control over the independent variable and assigning participants to conditions randomly to reduce various types of biases. These approaches indicated that there is a need for a qualitative type of research method that is capable of capturing these different impacts of music.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Every research design carries certain advantages and disadvantages. Controlled experiments, such as those by Kulinski et al. (2021), are good at isolating particular effects of music genres and enabling the exact measurement of dependent variables like heart rate and skin conductance. Nevertheless, their artificiality may restrict ecological validity as actual listening encounters are not as strictly controlled as those in laboratories.

While studies like that by Tervaniemi et al. (2021) focus on identifying contextual influences, they do not adequately help isolate cause-and-effect relationships. Further, randomized controlled trials like the study by Lin et al. (2023) are reasonable in their approach but might fail to focus on practical outcomes because their constraints are very stringent.

Appropriateness

Controlled experimental designs are the best for studying the physiological response because they are accurate with the measurement of variables and because they eliminate the influence of any confounding factors, which include the music genres. However, exploratory approaches retain value in the description of how contextual factors, like environment and emotional state, act with music to affect physiological markers (Oswald et al., 2020). Combining experimental rigor with ecological validity would provide a complete understanding of the effects of music.

Unknown

The previous literature leaves significant gaps regarding how individual differences, such as baseline physiological states, cultural background, and personal preference, modulate responses to music. Long-term effects of repeated exposure to music have still, more or less, been loosely explored (Killingly & Lacherez, 2023). Other contextual factors, such as environmental distractions or emotional states, remain poorly understood in terms of exactly how they mediate or moderate the effect of music on physiological response.

Principles and Standards

Most of the reviewed studies are within APA standards in that they report changes in physiological markers using powerful statistical tools, such as repeated-measures ANOVA and regression analysis. However, some studies do not openly report effect sizes and confidence intervals, limiting their reproducibility and generalizability (Böschen, 2023). Future research should emphasize thorough reporting and adherence to APA standards in order to improve methodological rigor and thus facilitate cross-study comparisons.

Research Question and Hypothesis

Research Question

Can different types of music lead to different physiological responses? Physiological responses include changes in heart rate, skin conductance, and blood pressure.

Hypothesis

Different genres of music will bring about different physiological responses: classical music will slow down the heart rate and reduce blood pressure owing to its relaxing effect; rock music will increase arousal, which can be measured by greater skin conductance; and jazz will evoke moderate responses that mix relaxation with stimulation.

Variables

The independent variable in this study is the music genre, operationalized as exposure to predefined excerpts of classical, rock, or jazz music. The dependent variables, heart rate, skin conductance, and blood pressure, will be measured with validated biomedical devices. These variables have been selected for their relevance to existing research and their potential for capturing the autonomic effects of music.

Conclusion

Conclusively, the ability of music to modulate physiological responses is a powerful foundation for therapy, wellness, and performance optimization. Classical music is calming and thus useful in the reduction of stress, while rock music could be arousing and potentially beneficial in concentration and motivation. Jazz falls in between and is, therefore, flexible enough to be used in many settings. This study will seek to explain how different genres modulate heart rate, skin conductance, and blood pressure.

Utilizing a controlled experimental design and addressing some of the gaps in the literature, this study seeks to advance knowledge in music psychology and inform practical applications in healthcare and beyond. Some limitations of this study involve individual differences in preferences and familiarity with music, which may lead to different physiological responses. Moreover, the controlled laboratory setting may not fully capture the complexity of real-world listening experiences. Future research should aim at longitudinal designs in search of long-term effects due to music exposure and delve into how contextual and individual factors shape physiological responses.

References

Böschen, I. (2023). Changes in methodological study characteristics in psychology between 2010-2021. PLoS ONE, 18(5), e0283353. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283353

Killingly, C., & Lacherez, P. (2023). The song that never ends: The effect of repeated exposure on the development of an earworm. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 174702182311523. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218231152368

Kulinski, J., Ofori, E. K., Visotcky, A., Smith, A., Sparapani, R., & Fleg, J. L. (2021). Effects of music on the cardiovascular system. Trends in Cardiovascular Medicine, 32(6). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcm.2021.06.004

Lin, H.-M., Kuo, S.-H., & Mai, T. P. (2023). Slower tempo makes worse performance? The effect of musical tempo on cognitive processing speed. Frontiers in Psychology, 14(14). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.998460

Oswald, T. K., Rumbold, A. R., Kedzior, S. G. E., & Moore, V. M. (2020). Psychological impacts of “screen time” and “green time” for children and adolescents: A systematic scoping review. PLOS ONE, 15(9), 1–52. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237725

Tervaniemi, M., Makkonen, T., & Nie, P. (2021). Psychological and physiological signatures of music listening in different listening environments—An exploratory study. Brain Sciences, 11(5), 593. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11050593

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

---

PSY 510 Milestone Three Guidelines and Rubric

Problem Statement and Literature Review

Overview
This assignment is another building block for the final project. Before you begin, please review the Required Resources to support your success with this milestone assignment.

Keep in mind the differences between research papers and literature reviews. Research papers take a topic and describe all aspects of that topic. They use current articles and books to support the statements in the paper.

A literature review is literally a review of current articles designed to support the topic. This milestone assignment will have you focus on writing a literature review.

For example, if you want to investigate color preference among adult men and women, you first need to review current studies on the topic. Your paper needs to begin with an introduction and an explanation of the topic. You need to find peer-reviewed journal articles, like the six in your annotated bibliography.

You need to summarize each article, including what the researcher found, a brief description of the research design, the advantages and disadvantages of the design, and how the article compares to other articles in the literature review. These details are essentially your annotations in your annotated bibliography. You need to add more information to each annotation, but they are a great start.

Then, you describe the gaps or pieces that are missing in the research (if any), ethical considerations (if any), and validity issues (if any). Each article becomes its own paragraph or two (or three) and then leads into the next article. Once you describe each of the articles in the literature review individually, you collectively include a discussion of any gaps in the current body of research. This is where your research comes in.

You are going to be investigating an area with a gap. So, by discussing the gaps, you lead on to your research question and finally to your hypothesis and the proposed study’s key variable. Now you have a literature review that contains an introduction to the topic, a review of each current article, a discussion of where there are gaps in the current literature, your research question and how that fits into the gaps, and a concluding hypothesis. Your literature review becomes the beginning of your research report.

Prompt
In Module Six, you will submit your problem statement and literature review. In addition, you will revise your previously submitted research question and hypothesis based on the feedback from your instructor in Milestone Two.

Your work should include the following critical elements:
I. Problem Statement: This is a short description of the problem to be improved upon. Your introduction to the problem statement will provide your reader with the general topic of the proposal and its importance and relevance to real-world issues.

II. Literature Review: Include an overview of previously published work on your selected topic. This should include scholarly resources. Your literature review should consist of the following elements:

a. Existing Research: Summarize existing, applicable research, utilizing peer-reviewed sources, and attempts to do so in an integrated way.
b. Research Designs: Identify different research designs used to generate knowledge on the topic and describe how they differ.
c. Advantages and Disadvantages: Differentiate between research designs for their advantages and disadvantages in addressing the research question.
d. Appropriateness: Evaluate the appropriateness of the research designs to the research questions and determine the most appropriate design, providing justification for each.

e. Unknown: Summarize what is unknown or uncertain about the topic, utilizing applicable research.
f. Principles and Standards: Discuss the appropriateness of the data analysis procedures used in the literature as they relate to the APA’s principles and standards.

III. Research Question and Hypothesis

a. Research Question: Include the testable research question written in Milestone Two. This should be a revised research question based on your instructor’s previous feedback.
b. Hypothesis: Include the testable hypothesis written in Milestone Two. This should be a revised testable hypothesis based on your instructor’s previous feedback.
c. Variables: Describe the variables that will be measured and manipulated in the study, explaining the selection of the variables.

What to Submit
Your paper must be submitted as an APA-formatted Microsoft Word document with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins. This paper should be a minimum of 4 pages in length (not including the cover page and references), and it should cite at least six peer-reviewed sources