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This is a report on music and its effects on driving.
As you can see in the table of contents, the resources for this report
come from a variety of available sites on the internet. Each of the
sources have their own particular style and focus and, as such, my report
will vary to adjust to the type of information given. My main interest
concerns the recent findings relating to Baroque music, Mozart in particular,
and the effect this music has on an individual. The application of
these findings to driving should be easily deduced. Since much of
the resources I will be reviewing will not refer to this current research,
my comments in those sections will only focus on the information given
there.
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In the email discussions of G7/459
students, a few issues regarding listening to music while driving were
presented. Most of them centered around the effects that the loudness and
tempo of the music have on a driver and the effects of driving without
music at all. The first three email responses touch on these issues.
 First, Mr. Sasabe felt that he got lost in the music he played in his car and this caused him to not pay attention to how fast he was going and he ended up with two speeding tickets as a result. His remedy is to not listen to any music so that his total focus is on the road. Next,Mr. Miyoshi pointed out that rock music makes our hearts beat faster, therefore possibly increasing our adrenaline and causing us to become more aggressive or lose some of our senses. He also feels that turning off the music in the car is more relaxing and enables him to control his feelings more. Finally, Mr. Shintani stated how he uses music to match the effect he wants while driving. For instance, when he wants to drive fast he plays music with a "powerful or fast beat" but when he wants to relax, he plays music that has a mellower sound. He also mentioned the topic of studies on the reduction of violence in malls where classical music is played. In his report, Mr. Nakagawa adds on other variables to the effects of music while driving. He feels that, while music does have an effect, other factors such as: mood, weather, time of day, level of consciousness, etc., all contribute. He finds that he can not listen to slow music when he is in a hurry because it would irritate him due to its conflicting influence. Also, when he is tired he needs to listen to loud, fast paced music in order to keep him awake and alert. Returning to the email discussions, Brian Haimerman, who is taking a history of Rock and Roll class that is studying the effects of Rock music on our psyche, stated that the loudness and beat of the music has a direct effect on us physiologically and psychologically by increasing our heart beats and causing our blood pressure to rise. Kristen Evert, on the other hand, from personal experience, did not feel effected by the loud fast paced music she always plays while driving. She stated that her driving is not as aggressive as it ought to be considering the research done. However, she does agree that slow sappy music could make her sleepy. The next two email responses acknowledged music for its calming and tension relieving effects. Mary Ford found that melodious tapes work to keep her from being too aggressive when she drives. Tami Hshimoto does not state the type of music she listens to but claims it is very effective in relaxing her when she drives. In contrast to Ms. Ford and Ms. Hshimoto, Cris Burlem reiterates the benefits of having no music while driving. Cris claims that, without music, concentration on the road is enhanced. Relaxation is also easier without music than with it on. Cris finds that music can actually be more irritating when one is uptight and frustrated. Finally, Wilfred Lee expressed the theory that, when one listens to one's favorite music, traffic is not noticed as much and time passes by easily. He also commented on the tempo and loudness of music effecting driving performance with classical music possibly being the solution to our driving performance needs. |
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Don't you noticed that those people who likes to speed and drive recklessly are listening to heart-pounding music. They would turn the volume up high. These people do not realize that listening to heart-pounding music will increase your heartbeat, therefore, increasing the adrenaline. This rush of energy gives the people an excuse to speed. One of the way to release it is to drive really fast. What a thrill you can have, but what about the risk that you are taking?Although I find Ms. Lau's argument compelling due to her insistence, I have to admit that I have not been convinced because of her lack of scientific methodology. There is really nothing in her report to back up her claims that music has such strong influences on one's driving. Even in my personal experience, I can not agree with her findings. In, "How music Affects Drivers: Driving to a Different Beat," by Grace Lumabao, the conclusions are not so strong as Ms. Lau's. Ms. Lumabao takes into account other factors and entertains the possibility that music may effect a driver but not as a sole influence. This theory seems much more likely to be the case than Ms. Lau's. In Holly Ishikawa's report, "Music and Drivers: What is Your Mood?," mood and taste seem to be the most determining factors of how music will influence a driver. This is very similar to Ms. Lumabao's ideas. Ms. Ishikawa states that even though classical music is supposed to be calming, if one does not like it then it will irritate them instead of calming them down, thereby creating a greater level of aggressivity. Therefore, one of the major factors in determining if music will affect someone depends upon their disposition towards the particular type of music. This is stated further by one of the newsgroup entries she found by Tim Archer who states, "I find that I listen to music according to my mood. Not the other way around. ie the music I listen to doesn't determine my mood." Tami Hattori, unfortunately did not have much new to add in her report. In conclusion to the former generational
reports and e-mail discussions, I find a lot of personally biased opinions
about how much music, or lack thereof, affects one's driving. There
is much conviction to the idea that classical music or light rock is the
best music to listen to while driving. However, classical music encompasses
such a broad range of composition including variety of rhythm, beat, tempo
and etc. to the degree that it's effects would have to be as broad as its
compositional breadth. Again, Tim Archer, the newsgroup entrant that
was quoted in Ms. Ishikawa's report states, " I can also feel perfectly
relaxed listening to loud/fast music... I don't know about [classical music
as the most appropriate music to play while driving] Get a copy of "Ode
to Joy", crank it up in your car and you'll know what I mean. Much classical
music (orchestral stuff and operas, anyway) is intended to be stirring,
and certainly does not induce a "serene" mood!"
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The first research oriented site I located was by Mun-Yew Loke a student at SFSU whose research paper, "Psycho Physiological Effects of Different Kinds of Television Sound in Different Acoustic Settings and Dramaturgic Context," outlined very specifically the different compositional elements of music: pitch, timbre, duration, loudness, attack, decay and key. And further elements of complexity: themes (main ideas, and instruments), form (type of music, or style), and storylines (lyrics and melodies). Considering all of these elements that constitute a piece of music, I agree with Mr Loke's assessment that one needs to analyze the effect of music by reducing it to its elements. His report only went as far as posing hypotheses and theories, however, it is an excellent reference for beginning a study on the effects of music because of its in-depth look at all the aspects of music. Searching further into the Web, I found an excellent resource page, CannonSong Media, which led me to the rest of the sources for this section of my report. One informational resource found in CannonSong Media was Music and Brain Information Database (MBI) which may be of interest to future generations. Unfortunately, I was either unable to learn how to use this site or it needs more work to access it. More important was the link to MuSICA the Music and Science Information Computer Archive. It was here that I found the most interesting and pertinent information. The first study of interest was, of course, the Mozart research. The most well known research on this subject to date is not the Baroque music study done by Dr. A.A. Tomatis in France and Dr. Georgi Lozanov in Bulgaria but the research that was conducted by Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw and Katherine Ky at the University of California at Irvine, in 1993. As explained in, Mozart and Spatial Reasoning, this study showed that spatial reasoning abilities were significantly better in students who listened to Mozart for 10 minutes than those who listened to a relaxation tape or silence. The following year, noted in, Does listening to Mozart Affect Spatial IQ?, an attempt by Stough and colleagues, at the University of Aukland, to replicate UC Irvine's results found different results. Using Mozart, dance music or silence they found no effects on a test of intelligence. However, the original researchers produced another study that produced similar results to their first test. In both studies by Irvine researchers, the music chosen of Mozart's was the same, Sonata for Two Pianos, K448. Apparently, more independent research needs to be done in this area to be more conclusive, however, prudence would be picking up a copy of Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos, K448 and exercising to expand those synapses in your brain by listening for 10 minutes or so a day. Another quite interesting study was on the topic of Heavy Metal, Rap and Adolescent Behavior. In this study, teenagers who were under treatment for behavioral and/or psychological problems were questioned about their music preferences. It was found that those teens who preferred heavy metal and rap music were more likely to have, "...poorer school grades, more behavioral problems in school, and more sexual activity, drug and alcohol use and arrests." It was further noted that background checks on these students revealed similar problematic traits at an earlier age prior to listening to heavy metal and rap music. This indicates more of the possibility that the youths are drawn to a particular type of music rather than there being an actual cause and effect relationship. The author who reviewed this study notes that, "the sample does not represent a cross section of adolescents in the United States, the reliance of questionnaires, even with reliability checks used in the study, is subject to some error and the possibility that music could promoted problems in already troubled teenagers was not investigated. More research is needed." The final reports I reviewed from MuSICA, The Coloring of Life: Music and Mood, and Understanding Music's Emotional Power, look into the effect music has on our moods and subsequently the effects our moods have on our perceptions and how our personality (being introverted or extroverted) creates different effects. In "The Coloring of Life's" introduction, a very important point is made about how our perceptions, memories and actions are "of our own construction ..."colored" by our moods," more so than we would like to contend. In other words, when in strong states of emotion, we are not seeing the world as it is but rather we are seeing it through the filter of emotion that we are experiencing at the moment. It is further noted that recent studies indicate, "... that music plays a major role." The research experiments that were cited revealed some interesting information. In one study, it was found that music tends to increase positive moods if it is happy music and increase negative moods if it is sad music. Two other studies found that our memory of words are affected by the type of music we listen to. Here, congruency is found: with positive music the subject remembered positive words more readily and vice versa with sad music. It appears that the mood of the music determined the type of words that were given attention. Next, a person's perception of art and even the moods of others can be greatly effected by music according to two other studies. The first study had independent experts judge the mood of an art piece. They then had subjects judge the art while listening to happy or sad music. Those who listened to happy music judged the art as positive even when the expert judges labeled it depressing and vice versa. Furthermore, in the second study which focused on responses to facial expressions, it was found that when listening to depressing music the subjects were inclined to judge neutral faces to be sad. The results of these four studies indicate that music plays a powerful role in our moods, perceptions, and memory and consequently how we judge the world around us. Finally, in "Understanding Music's Emotional Power," it is shown that one's personality, whether introverted or extroverted, must be taken into consideration when looking at how music affects an individual. In this report, introverts were noted as remembering significantly less than extroverts when they were both subject to listening to background 'pop' music while reading a 400 word passage. The author, N.M.Weinberger, points out that in studying the emotional power of music, we not only have to take into consideration the technical difficulties of targeting different aspects of an extensive array of types of music, but we also need to delve into the variety of differences in response that one individual has compared with others and compared with themselves at a different time. He notes another study by A.C. North and D.J. Hargreaves who looked at degrees of liking compared with degrees of arousal potential of music to see if one could predict emotions created by the music. They found that by themselves the factors did not create particular emotions but together the results show that emotional ratings are predictable. So, how does all of this information on music affect one as a driver? It appears that, more than listening to a particular style of music, such as rock, jazz or classical, one should listen to music that is personally uplifting, since music has such a powerful affect on moods. Listening to Mozart (especially, Sonata for Two Pianos, K448) prior to driving may help the driver think more clearly but it seems obsessively silly to prescribe this as a ritual. And, although I am reluctant to state this, introverted people may want to try silence in order to produce better concentration. |
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In Chapter 3, the discussion focuses on our intentions while driving. There are four different types of intention: actual (conscious direct intended act); virtual (continued influence but not always conscious); habitual (incorporated patterns of behavior often made out of comfort and convenience); and, interpretive (after the fact explanation). These different types of intentions can all be influenced by the music we listen to while driving. How music influences can be varied and complex. For instance, the actual lyrics can suggest behaviors, the rhythm and/or beat can affect one's mood and the volume of the music can also affect mood, behavior and add distractions. Passengers and their involvement with the driver and the music that is playing adds new dimensions to the driver's intentions while operating the car. This brings us to Chapter 4 wherein Rothe suggests, "drivers are more likely to make decisions based on preferential rules of conduct than they are on objective information." (p.39). So, while the music is playing and passengers are involved, the driver may be influenced to behave in a less safe manner than usual. His intentions toward being social and fun could override intentions of safety and obeying laws of the road. The driver could be influenced more readily in this direction if, as explained in Chapter 7, he is prone to be a driver as an individualist rather than as a collectivist. The individualist driver drives as one who is more focused on their own standards and personal expressiveness. He is not as concerned about external standards or self-control that is directed towards societal standards and rules. Finally, in Chapter 9, the concern is about speeding. While speeding is prevalent in our society, it does not appear to be the main factor in driving accidents. Alertness and attentive driving is probably more important. This is where music can have a major influence. The right balance of music tempo, lyrics, volume and style to one's mood and energy level at the time can help keep one alert and focused. However, one's mood and energy level can be exacerbated or irritated by the type of music playing too. In all, it is easy to see how music can play a role in the various aspects of the driver's current circumstance. It can influence, for good or bad, the driver's intentions, his/her social interactions while driving, his/her attitude about driving, and his/her mood and level of attentiveness. |
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ERIC
Brittin,
Ruth V.; Standley, Jayne. Researchers in Music Education/Therapy:
Clair,
Alicia Ann; Heller, George N.";. Willem Van De
Wolfe,
David E.. Effect of a Visual Prompt on Changes in Antecedents and
Giles,
Martha Mead;. A Little Background Music, Please.; Principal;
v71
Russell,
Lori A.. Comparisons of Cognitive, Music, and Imagery Techniques
Taylor,
Jack A.. The Evolution and Future of Cognitive Research in Music.
DeNardo,
Gregory F.; Kantorski, Vincent J.. A Continuous Response
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As mentioned above, I've concluded that listening to uplifting music in any form is the best prescription for an enjoyable drive. Whether listening to music or not, drivers are responsible for the attentiveness to their driving and if the music is too distracting, then the obvious action is to turn it off. Personally, I find music helps me concentrate on driving rather than listening to the multitude of distracting thoughts in my head. And, finally, in response to the questions I posed in the Summary and Comments section of this report:
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