More data that digs into how music affects us - this time a study from the University of Lisbon looking at whether different types of background music (happy, sad, none) will affect what you choose to look at.
A relatively small study of 63 participants were broken into three groups where they either listened to happy music, sad music or a control group with no music. They were then presented with pairs of visual images - one showing a fortunate circumstance, the other showing an unfortunate or negative circumstance.
Turns out that the background music won't affect what image you start to look at, but it will affect how long you will spend on an image. Sad music makes you spend longer on sad imagery and vice versa for happy music.
Not really a shocker but nice evidence of how music can shape your attention.
Image Credit: Trader of the Apocalypse by David Blackwell on Flickr
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