Abstract
Music making has a number of beneficial effects for motor tasks compared to passive music listening. Given that recent research suggests that high energy musical activities elevate positive affect more strongly than low energy musical activities, we here investigated a recent method that combined music making with systematically increasing physiological arousal by exercise machine workout. We compared mood and anxiety after two exercise conditions on non-cyclical exercise machines, one with passive music listening and the other with musical feedback (where participants could make music with the exercise machines). The results showed that agency during exercise machine workout (an activity we previously labeled jymmin – a cross between jammin and gym) had an enhancing effect on mood compared to workout with passive music listening. Furthermore, the order in which the conditions were presented mediated the effect of musical agency for this subscale when participants first listened passively, the difference in mood between the two conditions was greater, suggesting that a stronger increase in hormone levels (e.g., endorphins) during the active condition may have caused the observed effect. Given an enhanced mood after training with musical feedback compared to passively listening to the same type of music during workout, the results suggest that exercise machine workout with musical feedback (jymmin) makes the act of exercise machine training more desirable.
Highlights
A number of factors have been shown to beneficially modulate the performance of motor tasks in combination with music
A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed that the main effect of condition on the three mood subscales was statistically significant, Pillai’s Trace = 0.21, F(3, 41) = 3.56, p < 0.05
The data indicate that musical agency during exercise machine workout can more strongly increase the subjectively perceived mood
Summary
A number of factors have been shown to beneficially modulate the performance of motor tasks in combination with music. Because the walking was performed in synchrony with the beat and all musical stimuli had the same duration and tempo, the differences in walking speed could only have been the result of music-induced differences in stride length, reflecting the vigor or physical strength of the movement This is supported by other research showing that participants walked faster on music than on metronome ticks (Styns et al, 2007), and that the sound pressure level of the bass drum in dance music leads to more intense spontaneous hip movements and a higher degree of time entrainment (Van Dyck et al, 2013). Such a positive effect of musical parameters on the motor behavior of patients with Parkinson’s disease has been reported both immediately during walking (Enzensberger et al, 1997), and as a long-term therapeutical effect (after weeks of training) (Thaut et al, 1996; De Bruin et al, 2010)
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