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What is the effect of different types of music on the physiological…

- - - - An individual's music preference may affect their attitude, liking and therefore response to the music that they are subject to listening to. For example, an individual who enjoys listening to a particular genre may feel greater arousal and therefore a greater physiological response if it is a genre they enjoy listening to. On the other hand, if they were to listen to a genre that could be seen as the 'opposite' of their most enjoyed one, then they may feel less arousal and therefore have a less significant physiological response to it.
    - - The initial mood of an individual may affect their initial heart rate, with factors that were discussed previously, as well as their responses to the music and attitude towards the testing. As a result, those with different initial moods compared to others are likely to have varying physiological responses depending on their mood. Therefore, someone in a poor mood may feel less inclined to participant in the test and positively skew the data due to a decreased physiological response to the testing.
    - - A participant's prior knowledge regarding the test, specifically the type of music being used, may influence their attitude and therefore physiological response to the stimulus (music). This is because they may feel either dejected or ecstatic depending on what the music genres are, leading to differences in the changes in heart rate. A dejected individual may approach the test with a non-caring attitude and therefore positively skew the results whilst an ecstatic one may negatively skew the results with a much higher change in heart rate due to excitement.
    - - The initial heart rate of an individual can fluctuate depending on a variety of participant and environmental factors. Some individuals may have a naturally higher resting heart rate compared to others which can negatively skew the data. Therefore, when the data is collected, the average change in heart rate between two points of time need to be taken in order to reduce the effect of this factor on the data. Environmental factors will be discussed in a following sub-branch.
    - - The fitness level of different participants will affect their initial heart rates. For example, those who are physically fit tend to have lower resting heart rates than others. This could affect their response to the stimuli, resulting in a smaller increase in heart rate or even a potential decrease depending on how stimulated they are prior to testing. As a result, an individual with a higher fitness level could positively skew the data whilst one with a lower one could negatively skew the data.
    - - The sex of participants may affect their natural physiological responses to stimuli. According to research, the average size of a woman's heart is larger than a man's so they have a higher heart rate on average too (K. Prabhavathi et al., 2014). As a result, the females may have experienced a larger difference in heart rate before and after being exposed to the stimuli which may positively skew the data.
    - - Initial illnesses that participants may have could potentially mean that their resting heart rate may be higher than others. For example, an individual with an illness such as cardiomyopathy makes it more difficult for the heart to deliver blood to the body (Mayo Clinic, 2022). A case of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy could cause fast or irregular heartbeats and would in turn be an outlier and negatively skew the data.
    - - The varying age of participants is a factor that affect the rate at which one's heart beats at. For example, a younger person's heart is shown to beat, on average, faster than an older person's one because heart cells degenerate with age and so the average heart rate is slower (NIH Aging. 2018).
  - - - The environment that individuals take the testing in can influence their physiological responses to the test as it affects the conditions that the participant is subject to. For example, a higher temperature causes a higher heart rate as it causes more blood flow to the skin. Therefore, this case would negatively skew the data set since it would lead to a higher increase in heart rate between tests since the participants would be consistently in this environment. On the contrary, if the environment was quite cold, then the participants may experience less of an increase in heart rate and positively skew the data.
    - - The time of day may impact an individual's initial condition before taking the test. For example, at an early time of the day, individuals may feel quite groggy and so the stimulus (music) may have less of an impact on their physiological responses. Furthermore, this survey was conducted at a school with students and so if it was taken after a break such as recess or lunch, then individuals may have a higher initial heart rate due to being stimulated or physically active during this break. If it were to be done towards the end of the day, students may begin to feel excited for the day to end, in turn raising their initial heart rate and potentially negatively skewing the data. Additionally, as this survey was conducted over a range of different classes, this time of day was not kept consistent throughout all of the subjects.
    - - The noise of the environment in which the participants are taking their test in may affect their physiological responses due to this being an external stimuli. Sudden loud noises may cause increases in this response due to the acoustic startle reflex as the heart is shown to have an abrupt response with the heart rate and blood pressure as a result of this stimuli. (Vitor Engrácia Valenti et al., 2012), which can negatively skew the heart rate data. Quieter environments decreases the extent of the effect this external stimuli has on the individuals and as a result, can positively skew the data.
  - - - Keeping the speed constant ensures that the music plays at its intended speed and so there is less deviation of results. A higher music speed for a calming piece of music could potentially induce a higher physiological response compared to its intended natural speed and so this negatively skews the data as well. Therefore, it must be kept constant to ensure that this does not happen.
    - - The device volume throughout the experimental process must be kept at constant for individual participants. This is because varying volumes can incite different physiological responses for the participants. For example, turning the volume down for a stimuli that is supposed to be intentionally loud, such as rock music would likely reduce the physiological response of the participants compared to a response that its natural volume, that it was intended to be at, could have induced.
    - - Different audio quality from the headphones or earbuds that participants use may affect physiological responses from them. One with good quality listening devices may be able to pick out the small details of music and thus experience a greater response to it compared to an individual with a poor quality listening device. As a result, throughout trials, individuals must keep on using the same headphones for their individual results to be consistent, as everyone using the same listening device is expensive and inconvenient.
    - - The time of day is a situational variable and must be controlled to some extent for consistent results. It would be ideal if all participants were to take part in the experiment on the same day at the same time as this eliminates the possibility of elevated physiological responses depending on the time of day. As a result, participants must sit the whole experiment in one sitting as not doing this could potentially affect the data due to different physiological responses at varying times of day
    - - Different heart rate measuring devices may have slight deviations in their measurements and so the same type of device needs to be used for all users as this minimises the error between the data collected for the participants' physiological responses.