The contribution of different musical variables to the effect of background music on motor behavior.

Abstract

The ability of music to evoke a physical response has long been considered inherent to its function in human society (Merriam, 1964)-the spontaneous propensity to move to music is considered a human universal (Nettl, 2000), occurring in diverse populations from young children (Sacks, 2007) to elderly Alzheimer's disease patients (Bigand, as cited in Facci, 2013). An intrinsic coupling of music and behavior is suggested by evolutionary accounts, citing for example the role of music in intragroup bonding (Dunbar, 2004; Huron, 2003). It has been proposed by Merker (2000) that the ability to synchronize movement with music developed during the speciation between chimpanzees and early hominids, and is therefore a definitively human phenomenon.Because music listening is very often a secondary activity (Juslin & Laukka, 2004), and because music is a relatively easily manipulated component of one's environment (Milliman, 1986), much research has focused upon the effects of background music on behavior. Background music herein refers to a passive constituent of one's environment (Mehrabian & Russell, 1974), which is not being actively attended to or engaged with.Perhaps unsurprisingly, background music may modulate a wide variety of everyday behaviors. Meta-analysis by Kampfe, Sedlmeier, and Renkewitz (2011) has demonstrated that background music exerts a small but systematic effect on behavior. This effect is important however, given the increasing ubiquity of background music in contemporary society (Edwards, 2008). Moreover, research has documented myriad motor- behavioral outcome measures that may be influenced by background music, including walking (Milliman, 1982), cycling (Waterhouse, Hudson, & Edwards, 2010), eating (Roballey et al., 1985), and drinking (McElrea & Standing, 1992). For example, Roballey et al. (1985) found that faster background music was associated with a faster rate of eating, compared with either slower music or no music. Similarly, Milliman (1982) found that variation in the tempo of background music in a supermarket (130 bpm vs. 70 bpm) was significantly associated with the pace of shopper traffic. Importantly, the effects of background music are often implicit; in the aforementioned study no participant reported awareness of being consciously influenced by the music. It may be concluded therefore, that the effects of background music upon behavior do not rely upon overt awareness of the stimulus.In addition to tempo, research has also demonstrated an effect of musical intensity upon the speed of behavior. Gueguen, Le Guellec, and Jacob (2004) observed that the intensity of background music in a bar (72-75 vs. 88-91 dB SPL) had a significant effect on the rate at which patrons consumed drinks, with louder music associated with more drinks consumed during an equivalent period. Similar effects of musical intensity are evident in the case of exercise performance. In a study by Edworthy and Waring (2006), participants performed short intervals of treadmill running while listening either to no music, or to music that was systematically varied in tempo and intensity. Both running speed and heart rate were significantly greater in the loud conditions, and the effect of tempo was also modulated by intensity-that is, tempo had a greater influence upon running speed when intensity was increased. Additionally, in a synchronized walking paradigm, Leman et al. (2013) reported that greater mean stride length was associated with increased perceived loudness of musical stimuli, despite all stimuli being amplitude-normalized. Leman and coworkers described this effect as an evoked change in motor vigor. Modeling of audio features showed that increased stride length was also associated with stimuli featuring a regular binary beat, and a lack of emphasis of ternary structures, highlighting the notion that musical features other than tempo may be important. …