The PUMS Database: A Corpus of Previously-Used Musical Stimuli in 306 Studies of Music and Emotion

A corpus of Previously-Used Musical Stimuli (PUMS) is presented. The PUMS database is an online, publicly-available database where researchers can find a list of 22,417 musical stimuli that have been previously used in the literature on how music can convey or evoke emotions in listeners. A total of 306 studies on music and emotion are included in the database. Each musical stimulus used in these studies was coded according to various criteria: its designated emotion and how it was operationalized, its length, whether it is an excerpt from a longer work, and its style or genre. In the PUMS corpus, there is also information regarding the familiarity of the original participants with each musical sample, as well as information regarding whether each passage was used in a study about perceived or induced emotion. The name of the passage, composer, track number, and specific measure numbers or track location were noted when they were identified in the original paper. The database offers insight into how music has been used in psychological studies over a period of 90 years and provides a resource for scholars wishing to use music in future behavioral or psychophysical research. The PUMS database can be accessed online at https://osf.io/p4ta9.

Electroencephalogram patterns with the presence of an unknown musical stimulus

The cerebral activity presents different behaviors in different situations and levels of consciousness, especially under musical stimulation. Signals of the central nervous system may disclose bioelectrical patterns, since listening to rhythmic sequences activates specific brain areas. In this paper, we analyze 42 neurologically normal Brazilian individuals, submitted to musical stimulation based on a procedure consisting of three different steps, during which the volunteer is kept with closed eyes. The first step is associated with the preliminary control silence period, without any stimulus, as the volunteer remains at rest. The second step consisted of unknown music stimulation. Finally, the third step involves post-music rest. Quantitative signal analysis computes the power spectrum time variations. Results point out stronger changes in gamma and high gamma waves (30 – 100 Hz). Even though the clinical rhythms (0 – 30 Hz) change throughout the whole period of the experiment, quantitative differences at gamma and high gamma bands are remarkably greater. Particularly, when comparing the initial silent period and the final post-stimulation silent one, bioelectrical differences are only highlighted by gamma and high gamma rhythms. In consequence, this paper points out that the EEG analysis of cognitive issues related to musical perception cannot disregard gamma and high gamma waves.

Behavioral Correlates of the Muzak Experience

The current work seeks to characterize a unique genre of music, elevator music (Muzak), using behavioral crowd-sourcing data from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants rated excerpts of elevator music along with more rewarding genres of music for pleasure, valence, familiarity, and recognition. Our results demonstrate that elevator music is rated as neutrally pleasurable, with high valence, and highly familiar. Data collection is ongoing, and future experiments use computational models of music to tease apart the neutral effects of elevator music listening. Our results have practical significance in that they may provide a potential control musical stimulus to be used with self-selected rewarding music.

Toward a Utilitarian Theory of Consumer Response to Advertising Music

It is surprisingly difficult to know whether a piece of ad music will have its intended effect on consumers. A model developed by the author and a colleague (Craton & Lantos, 2011; Lantos & Craton, 2012) consists of four broad variables (listening situation, musical stimulus, listener characteristics, and listener’s advertising processing strategy) that interact to determine attitude toward the advertising music (Aam), a multidimensional construct that captures the many cognitive and affective elements of a consumer’s experience of ad music. Emerging research on negative emotional response to music, brand avoidance, and “mixed emotions” is consistent with predictions that Aam’s valence can be negative or a mixture of positive and negative (ambivalent). This literature also has implications for how to measure Aam and clarify its structure—specifically, the relationship between overall musical response and Aam’s many subsidiary elements. The present chapter reviews this emerging work, discusses its implications for the model, and suggests how the model can be extended by adding a layer of diverse psychological processes (“mechanisms”) that mediate between its four broad causal variables and Aam. The theory is “utilitarian” in the sense that the proposed mechanisms evolved to perform practical, biologically important tasks not specifically related to music processing.

MUSIC THERAPY IN DEMENTIA PATIENTS: WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?

Background: Dementia is an acquired status, characterized by a decline in at least two cognitive domains, severe enough to affect social or occupational functioning. The standard pharmacological treatment for dementia has limited efficacy, especially in non-cognitive outcomes. Music therapy (MT) is being studied as anon-pharmacological therapy for Dementia, due to its stimulating effects. Objective: Understand the main benefits of MT in dementia patients, through a systematic review. Methods: A literature research was carried out using the databases: PubMed and Scielo. The period of publication was limited from 2016 to 2021, with the search keywords: Music Therapy, Dementia. 297 studies were found, and 15 met the inclusion criteria for our review. Results: MT includes passive (listening to music) and active participation, such as playing instruments, singing or songwriting. Listening to music is linked with wild cortical activation and is a strong stimulus for neuroplastic changes. MT provides multimodal skills, performing integration of various cognitive functions, such as memory and attention, especially in interactive interventions. Conclusion: Studies showed mixed results, especially due to the lack of standardized methods for musical stimulus, but in general, MT was considered to improve verbal and language fluency, anxiety and depression levels, apathy, cognitive function and quality of life, and decrease neuronal degeneration by enhancing cerebral plasticity.

Does a Live Performance Impact Synchronization to Musical Rhythm in Cognitively Impaired Elderly?

Background: Music-based interventions appear to be efficient approaches to improve emotional, social, and cognitive functioning of patients with neurodegenerative diseases. Objective: Because benefits seem to increase with patient’s motor involvement, we studied sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) abilities of patients with cognitive impairments (Alzheimer’s disease, vascular and mixed dementia) and of patients with no evidence of cognitive impairments. More specifically, we compared the impact of a live performance by a musician to a video recording on SMS. Methods: SMS to a metronomic or a musical stimulus was assessed while patients watched a live musician or his pre-recorded video. Results: SMS to a metronome was better than to music but this effect was modulated by the social context. While SMS to a metronome was better when facing a video than a live performance, there was no impact of social context on SMS to music. No group differences of SMS were found. Conclusion: The decrease in SMS to a metronome in a live performance may be due to social pressure. Such a pressure might be removed in pleasant social activities, like moving with music in a group, explaining the lack of effect on SMS to music. We found no performance differences in groups, suggesting relatively spared SMS in cognitively impaired patients. By showing that it is possible to encourage patients to synchronize with others, even when facing a video, our results indicate that SMS can be used as a relevant predictor in clinical trials and open up promising therapeutic options for isolated patients.

Music and wine tasting: an experimental neuromarketing study

Purpose Music has a priming effect on product selection. The purpose of this paper is to extend the current understanding on this issue using an experimental design incorporating behavioural and brainwave data. Design/methodology/approach An experiment with 40 participants was conducted to explore how and why wine tasting preferences would be primed by different genres of musical stimuli. Electroencephalographic measurement was adopted to measure participant brainwave activity in two experiments, each involving two rounds of wine tasting, and the treatment was administered between the two rounds. Findings Significant associations between the musical stimulus genre and participant change in wine selection were found, and the musical stimuli resulted in different brainwave activities because participant β and γ wave activities significantly differed in the first and second wine tasting rounds. Correlational analyses indicated that α, β and γ wave activities generated by the musical stimuli were significantly but negatively correlated with α wave activity. α wave activity in the musical stimulus phases was significantly negatively correlated with β wave activity in the second round of wine tasting, and the other associations were significant and positive. Originality/value This study highlighted the priming effect of musical stimuli in wine tasting. Empirical evidence derived from experimental research was analysed with behavioural and brainwave data. This study’s original contribution is that it explored wine tasting preferences from a neuromarketing perspective. The results of this study can provide empirical evidence on how to effectively use music in marketing strategies.

A Reinvestigation of the Source Dilemma Hypothesis

In a recent article, Bonin, Trainor, Belyk, and Andrews (2016) proposed a novel way in which basic processes of auditory perception may influence affective responses to music. According to their source dilemma hypothesis (SDH), the relative fluency of a particular aspect of musical processing—the parsing of the music into distinct audio streams—is hedonically marked: Efficient stream segregation elicits pleasant affective experience whereas inefficient segregation results in unpleasant affective experience, thereby contributing to (dis)preference for a musical stimulus. Bonin et al. (2016) conducted two experiments, the results of which were ostensibly consistent with the SDH. However, their research designs introduced major confounds that undermined the ability of these initial studies to offer unequivocal evidence for their hypothesis. To address this, we conducted a large-scale (N = 311) constructive replication of Bonin et al. (2016; Experiment 2), significantly modifying the design to rectify these methodological shortfalls and thereby better assess the validity of the SDH. Results successfully replicated those of Bonin et al. (2016), although they indicated that source dilemma effects on music preference may be more modest than their original findings would suggest. Unresolved issues and directions for future investigation of the SDH are discussed.