Music is an integral part of our lives. An upbeat sound can help keep us
alive and kicking through a workout. Happy
tunes could easily brighten someone’s day and we all have that song that we
always listen to when we’re feeling down. Indeed, any kind of music always have an
impact on our emotions. Based on different studies, music actually does more;
it affects our perception, skills, and development. One’s personality is
sometimes judged and derived based on his/her musical preferences. Scientific
studies revealed that music affects different areas of our brain and here we
summarize 8 different ways it affects us.
1. Music affects our perception of faces
A study by Logeswaran and Bhattacharya, Crossmodal transfer of emotion
by music, have shown that when the subjects were asked to interpret neutral
faces whether they are happy or sad, while listening to a music piece, they
tend to match the emotions of the neutral faces to the emotions of the music
that they are listening to.
2. Lower the volume to improve creativity
When we want to keep our creative juices flowing, pumped up tunes and loud
music may not be helpful. A moderate noise level increase the difficulty of
processing and promotes abstract processing, which leads to higher levels of
creativity. So the next time you have to work on something that requires you to
think creatively and come up with new ideas, skip the rock playlist and work in
an environment with moderate, ambient noise.
3.
In a study by
Rentgrow and Gosling in 2006, Message in a Ballad. The Role of Music Preferences
in Interpersonal Perception, couples who are getting to know each other fared
well in their personality predictions by judging based on the top ten favorite
songs of the other person. Their study revealed the different personalities of
people who prefer certain music genres.
4. Your music preference may be a distraction when driving
A study was conducted on teenagers and young adults on how music affects
their driving. It revealed that drivers made more mistakes and are more
aggressive when their preferred music was playing. On the other hand, music
played by the researches were beneficial. Thus, unfamiliar music seem to be the
best choice when driving.
5. Music training can help children develop motor and reasoning skills
A study revealed that children who had at least three years of musical
training perform better on auditory discrimination, motor skills, as well as verbal
and nonverbal reasoning.
6. Enhance visual attention through classical music
In one study, visual attention of stroke patients were improved when they
listen to classical music. The effect of noise and silence were also studied,
and silence provided the worst results.
7. One-sided conversations are more distracting and annoying
A study revealed that the most distracting conversational noise is a phone
call conversation where we can only hear one person talking. In another survey,
82% of the respondents say that overhearing conversations on the cellphone are
annoying. A cognitive scientist, Veronice Galván, studied why these are the
noise that are most distracting and found out that one-sided conversations
easily grab our attention due to unpredictability and lack of context.
8. Music can help us last longer on a workout
The link between exercise efficiency and music
have been studied for years. Music helps us exercise better as it grabs our
attention and drowns out the fatigue signals of our brain. In a study, the
tempo and genre of the music generally plays a role in helping us work
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