Ambient Sounds and Subliminal Layering in Low-Fidelity Music

Abstract

Ambient sounds can generate emotional affective responses in listeners and are often used as “distortions” in Low Fidelity (Lo-Fi) music. To further explore Lo-fi music’s relaxing characteristics and the uses of ambient sounds as methods of relaxation and mental health improvement, the emotional affective nature of ambient sounds when used as the “distortions” in Lo-Fi music was focused on in this study. To accomplish this goal, auditory subliminal perception was integrated into the experiment. This study is the first study that relates subliminal perception and sound perception, in correlation with ambient sounds and the psychological effects they can have. Utilizing a pre-experimental research method with a within-subjects design, establishing each subject as their own experimental control, the experimental research study was administered through a series of surveys. The results derived point to the possibility that the ambient stimulus loses its individual emotion-inducing nature as it transforms, when subliminally embedded into a larger composition of music, into something like background noise. Through this study, a new field of research has opened for the scientific community and further research will no doubt yield much more promising results, opening another door to understanding human sound perception and its effects on emotion.