Aspects Of Listening Research Articles

Relationship between self-reported listening and communication difficulties and executive function: a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

IntroductionListening and communication difficulties can limit people’s participation in activity and adversely affect their quality of life. Hearing, as well as listening and communication difficulties, can be measured either by...

Emotional responses to favorite and relaxing music predict music-induced hypoalgesia.

The hypoalgesic effect of music has long been established. However, the characteristics of music which are important for reducing pain have not been well-studied. Some research has compared subject-selected preferred music to unfamiliar music selected by researchers, and has typically found a superior effect from preferred music. In this study, we sought to discover what aspects of listeners' relationship with their preferred music was important in producing a hypoalgesic effect. We conducted a thermal pain and music listening experiment with 63 participants (14 male, 49 female, mean age = 21.3), in which music excerpts were paired with thermal stimulations. Pain ratings of intensity and unpleasantness, as well as emotional response variables, were rated on visual analog scales. We also conducted brief structured interviews about participants' favorite music, on which we conducted thematic content analysis. Themes and emotion variables were analyzed for their effects on pain ratings. We first replicated the finding that favorite music outperforms experimenter-selected relaxing music in reducing pain unpleasantness (MD = -7.25, p < 0.001) and that the difference in hypoalgesia was partially mediated by an increase in musical chills (ab = -2.83, p < 0.01). We then conducted a theme analysis on the interview transcripts and produced four themes relating to emotional experience: moving/bittersweet, calming/relaxing, happy/cheerful, and energizing/activating. We found suggestive evidence that moving/bittersweet favorite music reduces pain unpleasantness through increased music pleasantness (ab = -5.48, p < 0.001) and more musical chills (ab = -0.57, p = 0.004). We find that music pleasantness and musical chills are salient predictors of music-induced hypoalgesia, and that different categories of favorite music derived from qualitative analysis may engage these emotional pathways to different degrees.

Iconic Meaning in Music: An Event-Related Potential Study.

Although there has been extensive research on the processing of the emotional meaning of music, little is known about other aspects of listeners’ experience of music. The present study investigated the neural correlates of the iconic meaning of music. Event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded while a group of 20 music majors and a group of 20 non-music majors performed a lexical decision task in the context of implicit musical iconic meaning priming. ERP analysis revealed a significant N400 effect of congruency in time window 260-510 ms following the onset of the target word only in the group of music majors. Time-course analysis using 50 ms windows indicated significant N400 effects both within the time window 410-460 ms and 460-510 ms for music majors, whereas only a partial N400 effect during time window 410-460 ms was observed for non-music majors. There was also a trend for the N400 effects in the music major group to be stronger than those in the non-major group in the sub-windows of 310-360ms and 410-460ms. Especially in the sub-window of 410-460 ms, the topographical map of the difference waveforms between congruent and incongruent conditions revealed different N400 distribution between groups; the effect was concentrated in bilateral frontal areas for music majors, but in central-parietal areas for non-music majors. These results imply probable neural mechanism differences underlying automatic iconic meaning priming of music. Our findings suggest that processing of the iconic meaning of music can be accomplished automatically and that musical training may facilitate the understanding of the iconic meaning of music.

Therapeutic Listening as a health intervention strategy: an integrative review

To investigate and evaluate the available evidence in the literature regarding the use of Therapeutic Listening as a health intervention strategy. Integrative review conducted on the following databases PubMed, CINAHL, The Cochrane Library, EMBASE, LILACS and APA PsycNET without restrictions of year or type of study. The keywords were combined in different ways to ensure extensive search of primary studies. Among the 15 studies on Therapeutic Listening, 33% addressed the effect of training on listening skills, 27% focused on the efficacy of listening as an intervention, 20% explored the experiences lived by the subjects regarding listening and 20% discussed various aspects of listening. Most studies have strong to moderate level of evidence, although addressing different aspects related to Therapeutic Listening, they have in common the need for recognition of skills on the part of health professionals, to develop an effective process of listening.

Essay: An Insight into Current German Research on Listening, as Exemplified by the Educational Project “GanzOhrSein”

The article gives us an exemplary insight into research in Germany that deals directly or indirectly with aspects of listening. The reader is given a clear picture of the Munich university project GanzOhrSein aimed at promoting listening skills in schools. The educational value of listening is initially derived from research findings and the model course of action to promote listening skills is explained via the cultural potential. The findings of the accompanying research clearly show that the diverse ways of promoting listening ability that have been developed and tested, do broaden the hearing and listening habits of the children and teachers participating in the project, and do facilitate listening conditions in lessons. The article will also demonstrate what researchers and everyday school practice can gain from this project, and how the institutionalisation of the promotion of listening can benefit.

The Effects of Musical and Voice “Fit” on Responses to Advertisements1

Research on musical “fit” suggests that listeners might recall more of a radio advertisement if it features musical/voice content that corresponds with features of the advertised brand. This is because the music/voice should prime certain aspects of listeners' knowledge. Two studies were carried out to test this, each involving 5 specially prepared radio ads. The first indicated that musical fit enhanced recall of the products advertised, the brands advertised, and specific claims made during the course of the ad copy; and also participants' ratings of liking for the ad and likelihood of purchasing the advertised product. A second similar study considered voice fit and found that this could also promote recall of specific product claims and lead to higher ratings of liking for the ad and likelihood of purchasing the advertised product. These results confirm that both musical and voice fit can prime certain aspects of listeners' knowledge and also increase liking for ads, such that it might improve knowledge‐based and affective responses to advertising. The theoretical implications of this are discussed in terms of the concept of involvement and what precisely is meant by musical/voice fit.

Developing Concepts of Musical Style

This paper describes three studies which investigate age changes in different aspects of listeners' responses to musical styles. In the first study, 105 children between the ages of 8 and 14 years were asked make “odd one out” discriminations amongst triads of classical and popular excerpts drawn from four stylistic groups in each case. There were no consistent age differences, and there was a much higher proportion of correct identifications of the target excerpts for the popular than for the classical styles. The second study investigated stylistic knowledge in 196 participants between the ages of 8 and 80 years by asking them to list what they considered to be 8 prominent styles of music. Participants made finer distinctions amongst the specific styles with which they were likely to be familiar as a result of their particular age cohort. In the third study 275 participants between the ages of 9 and 78 years were asked to name as many styles as they could within each of three genres (classical, jazz, and pop/rock), and to rate how much they liked these nominated styles. The total number of styles nominated followed an inverted-U-shaped pattern with increasing age, and liking for the styles overall was similar across the age groups apart from a significant increase in the oldest group. These results are discussed in terms of LeBlanc's (1991) life-span model of stylistic tolerance and of arousal-based processes In aesthetic preference. Cognitive, or knowledge-based aspects of age differences in responses to musical style are clearly dependent on the social and cultural contexts within which they occur.