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Comments From G7/459 Students
1) Comments From G7/459 Students
The following are comments made by seventh generation students from Dr. James? psychology 459 class. The first posting was from Mr. Sasabe. He mentions that he was caught speeding twice in his life. He attributes his speeding in both cases to the music he was listening to at the time. He concludes by discussing an instance when he was driving without music on. He said without the music on he was more relaxed, as if he was meditating. He recommends we try that.
The second set of comments are made by Mr. Miyoshi. He makes a note of how music has an effect on our level of physical arousal, i.e. some types give us an adrenaline rush that can cloud our judgment. Mr. Miyoshi also thinks that driving with no music can be more positive than listening to music. He reasons that certain types of music, a certain DJ, or the views being expressed on a talk show can either make a person more at ease when they are listening to something they agree with. On the other hand, if a driver is listening to music, a DJ, or a talk show that he/she dislikes or disagrees with, that can make him/her more aggressive on the road.
Next, Mr. Shintani discusses his feelings about how music affects drivers. He believes that fast and loud types of music can make a driver want to speed while mellow types of music such as classical music will lead a driver to feel more relaxed and less inclined to speed. His comments come from his own personal experience.
Web visitor Brian Heimerman discusses his experience in a class about the history of Rock n? Roll class where students are learning about the effects of music on our psyche. From this class, he concurs that music does have an effect on the affective, cognitive, psychomotor, and transpersonal aspects of people. He also states that music can affect heart rate, with loud music increasing it.
Kristin Evert writes that she listens to loud fast music while driving but often gets passed by other drivers on the road, leading her to conclude that music doesn?t propel her to speed. She also comments that listening to sappy music (soft, light sounds) makes her want to go to sleep.
Web visitor Mary Ford comments that as she has gotten older, she has become more irritable and aggressive/assertive behind the wheel. She questions whether this is normal or not. Also, she says she knows her behavior isn?t good, so she tries to listen to mellow music to stay calm on the road.
Tami Hashimoto writes that music helps her to stay calm and relaxed while driving even when the road conditions surrounding her are unpleasant.
Chris Burlem states that he tends to be irritable when driving and that music can make him more so. He finds that by turning the music off he can concentrate on his driving and perform better.
Wilfred Lee is convinced that music has a strong effect on drivers. He feels that fast and loud music makes a person?s heart beat faster while slow music relaxes a person, mellows them out. He comments that for him, he can?t drive fast while listening to mellow music such as classical music. He cites research that has determined classical music can calm children in their mothers? womb. So his conclusion is that maybe classical music is the answer to aggression on the road.
All of the students who gave their comments on this subject feel that music does have an effect on their feelings while they?re driving which then leads them to either drive more calmly or more aggressively. Most of the students commented that fast music makes them more inclined to speed while calm music relaxes them. Only Kristin Evert seems to be unaffected by fast music (i.e. listening to fast music doesn?t make her want to speed). Chris Burlem is the one student who seems to be irritated by music and prefers to drive without music on as it makes him concentrate better. Mr. Sasabe also feels driving without music allows for better concentration on the task of driving.
I think the question of whether music has an effect on a driver is without a doubt, easily verifiable through drivers? experiences music. As each of the people who have commented on this site have stated, they are all affected by music affectively in some way. Music at the very least serves to make a person more calm or happy or more pumped up or even irritable. But whether that then leads them to behave a particular way is uncertain as some of the comments (Kristin Evert?s in particular) reflect on music not leading to a behavioral alteration. Most interesting to me were the comments made by both Mr. Sasabe and Chris Burlem about how driving without music allows them to concentrate better on the road. This is a point that I agree with totally, as my own experience leads me to concur with Mr. Sasabe and Chris Burlem on the benefit of driving without music. But at the same time, music?s calming effect as many comments by students have attested to can?t be ignored.
B) My history with music
In my own personal experience, I?ve found that music does definitely affect my driving. From the time I first started driving, I found that when I listened to fast beating music like the Top Gun song: Highway to the Danger Zone, I would begin speeding up, i.e. over ten miles past the posted speed limit. But when I listened to mellow music, I would drive more slowly, i.e. not going more than ten miles over the posted speed limit. I still find music affecting me in the same way that it did before. Also, I think that certain driving conditions will lead a person to react in varying ways to music as well. For example, when I drive in unfamiliar territory, I don?t listen to music so that I can better concentrate on where I?m going. But when I?m driving to places I know well, I listen to music to keep me happy. So for me, music has a positive effect on my emotions in that it makes me happy to listen to songs that I like. This makes me calmer on the road, as I tend to just listen to my music and sing along and forget about people who are doing things on the road that I don?t like.
My first attempt at finding information on music and driving yielded this find:
http://www.aloha.net/~dyc/music.html
This site provides a link to various reports done on this subject by students in Dr. James? traffic psychology class. One of the reports I found that approached the matter of music and driving quite objectively was Synthia Lopez?s. Here?s a snippet:
"Mr. Sasabe is inferring causality from just one correlation, his speeding behavior and listening to music. There could have been other confounding variables involved, such as his urgency to reach a destination in both instances that he received the speeding tickets. It is probably more likely that he simply is unaware of his speeding most of time and blaming the music is easier than blaming his own reckless tendencies to speed. He states that no music, or turning off the radio, has a calming affect on his temperament. He didn't say he wasn't speeding without the music, just that he was more relaxed. Cris Burlem's solution to frustration is turning off the stereo as well. He says music tends to irritate him more when he tries to concentrate on driving. Some individuals need silence in order to focus, in activities like driving or studying, because noise and distractions impede her/his ability to think clearly and attend to the task."
If you wish to check out this report and others that were chosen personally by Dr. James as outstanding reports, visit the site.
Another interesting site, more interesting for it?s funny comments about music in general is this one: http://www.addicted.com.au/html/lofi/Reviews/44.1kHz/Queen_Pen/My_Melody.html
Although it?s more of a music review site, the comment on "Man Behind The Music" is quite humorous. I have to wonder why he says listening to this particular album will lead one to "total" their car.
My search on the css and site index for the traffic psychology classes lead me to the same reports posted on the site I found during my web search of music and driving. Each report on music and driving in the css index varied slightly in terms of the reactions and comments each student made. Although the format of the reports here are similar to mine, I feel the way these students wrote their reports was much more scientific in their approach than mine, which is based more on experiential accounts. The first report I checked out here was done by Cynthia J?Anthon. You can click on this link to get to her report as well as others: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/leoni.html#music
Having gone over every chapter in this book, I have not seen any comments Rothe made that discuss how music relates to or affects driving behavior. But at the same time, I think that many of the things Rothe discusses in the book such as speeding, risk taking, etc. can all possibly be influenced by the music a driver is listening to. This is not a fact, but a possibility that I have found to be true in my own personal experience.
1) Fromm, Harold. Ecology and Ecstasy on Interstate 80. The Hudson Review. 1998. V51n1 p.64
This article basically discusses how stress can arise when using automobiles and that music can help to reduce that stress.
2) Automobile Driving. Yo what was that bump, dude? Forbes. 1997. V160 p.114.
This article discusses drivers? response times and how their response times varied depending on the type of music listened to.
3) Turner, Marilyn L., Fernandez, Jeffrey E., and Nelson Karen. The effect of music amplitude on the reaction to unexpected visual events. The Journal of General Psychology. 1996 v123n1 p.51
This article discusses fast paced music and how it correlates to increase of speed in the reactions of those listening.
4)Thurber, Sarah. Don?t drive under the influence of emotion. Safety & Health. 1994 v150n1 p.66.
This article discusses the calming effects that mellow sounding music can have in reducing anger in drivers.
5) McIntyre, Thomas; Cowell, Karol. The Use of Music and Its Effects on the Behavior and Academic Performance of Special Students: A Review of the Literature. . 1984
This article examines the effects of music on the academic performance of students with "exceptionalities." The research concluded that no definite conclusions can be drawn about music?s effects here and that findings are often times contradictory.
6) Ebisutani, Kay; And Others. The Effects of Music on Reading, Oral Language, and Writing Abilities: A Review of Literature. .
Researchers? study suggests that music?s potential for affecting the literary performance of students is inconclusive and not likely.
7) Lauder, Don C.. An Experimental Study of the Effect of Music Activities upon Reading Achievement of First Grade Students. .
Research done here also suggests that music?s effect on the reading achievement of students is not significant.
In the research discussed in this article, "four subgroups, the sensing-thinking, sensing-feeling, intuitive-feeling, and the intuitive-thinking were selected with 16 subjects each. Two different visual information processing experiments were conducted. Each experiment contained two parallel portions which were alternately presented with musical accompaniment and without musical accompaniment." The researchers found that besides the first experiment, the music didn?t have a significant effect on the performance of either group of individuals. In the first experiment, the participants performed better without musical accompaniment.
9) McCarthy, Robert E.; Bakaitis, Patricia. Effects of Music Therapy on Handicapped Students: A Title VI-B Project. . 1975
Research found that there was a significant gain in attentiveness and a decrease in disruptiveness during therapy sessions accompanied by music.
10) Talabi, J. K.. The Effect of Music in Video Mediated Instruction on Student Achievement. Journal of Educational Television; v12 n2 p119-26 1986. 1986
Researchers found inconclusive differences in the effects of video instruction accompanied by music and video instruction without music.
7) Other Students
In doing this report, I looked at how the other students had handled the topic of music and its effects on driving. The reports that I found posted on the link I put up under my first web search on the topic were all fantastic, well written. I?m afraid mine isn?t quite as good, but I think I did my job decently well. I just wish I could have found more journal articles on this topic, but I was only able to find a few on my own.
I think future generations will be able to use the comments I?ve made regarding music and how I feel it affects my driving behavior useful in the analysis of how it affects them. But most useful I think are the links I have posted to the best written reports on this subject. I hope that future generations can find more research information on this subject to make discussions more fruitful.
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