Happy creativity: Listening to happy music facilitates divergent thinking (original) (raw)
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Frontiers in Psychology
This study examined the effect of music listening on creative thinking through the lens of the arousal-and-mood hypothesis, which posits that emotional reactions (i.e., arousal and valence) mediate the effect of music listening on cognitive functioning. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups: a positive music group (n = 198), a negative music group (n = 195), and a control group (n = 191). Creative thinking and emotional reactions were assessed with the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production and the Affect Grid, respectively. The results showed that both positively and negatively arousing music enhanced creative thinking. The results further revealed that arousal, regardless of valence, significantly mediated the music-creativity relationship. This study enriches the research on the arousal-and-mood hypothesis by (1) providing direct empirical testing on the mediating roles of emotional reactions; (2) including both positively and negatively arousing music in the study design; and (3) identifying that only arousal, and not valence, was a significant mediator in the music-creativity link.
Enhancing positive affect and divergent thinking abilities: Play some music and dance
This study compares the effect of dance on affect and cognition to music or exercise, in a young, non-clinical population. Participants were asked to complete tests of mood and creativity before and after spending 5 min either listening to music, dancing, cycling or sitting quietly. Both dancing and passively listening to music enhanced positive affect, decreased negative affect and reduced feelings of fatigue. Cycling and sitting quietly had no effect on positive mood or feelings of fatigue. Moreover, dancing and passively listening to music had dissociable effects on different aspects of creativity, with greater change in positive affect being associated with greater enhancement in measures of verbal and non-verbal creativity, respectively. We suggest that these findings support the use of either short duration dancing or passively listening to music as potentially powerful tools in enhancing emotional well-being and different aspects of divergent thinking in non-clinical settings.
Increasing Divergent Thinking Capabilities With Music-Feedback Exercise
Divergent thinking is an essential aspect of creativity and has been shown to be affected both by music and physical exercise. While it has been shown that making music and physical exercise can be beneficial for Divergent Thinking in isolation, it is unclear whether the effects can be combined. The present experiment investigated the relation of physical exertion and being in control of music on Divergent Thinking and the possibility of an interaction effect. Seventy-seven predominantly young, German participants were tested with measurements of Divergent Thinking collected after either (1) physical exercise with music listening, (2) making music with a knob setup without physical effort (music control only), or (3) making physical exercise with musical feedback (Jymmin TM). Results showed greater increases in Divergent Thinking scores following music-feedback exercise compared to conditions of physical exercise with music listening and music control only. The data thus demonstrate that making music part of a physical exercise routine more strongly leads to the benefit of increased creative capacities, which we argue will be beneficial for athletes to prepare for certain types of competition/performance and as part of regeneration training.
Effects of music listening on creative cognition and semantic memory retrieval
Psychology of Music, 2018
Listening to music can affect cognitive abilities and may impact creative cognition. This effect is believed to be caused by music's impact on arousal and mood. However, this causal relationship has been understudied. Furthermore, the strength of semantic knowledge associations has also been linked to creativity and provides an alternative hypothesis for increases in creative cognition. The relationship between music, mood, semantic knowledge, and creative cognition is not well understood. The present study consisted of two experiments. The first examined the relationship between music listening and creative cognition, the second additionally sought to examine whether the effect of music on semantic memory and/or mood are mechanisms that promote creative cognition. In the first experiment, participants completed 15 items of the Remote Associates Test of Creativity after listening to hip-hop music, classical music, and babble. In addition to replicating the first experiment, the second also measured mood and semantic memory. In both experiments participants displayed greater creativity after listening to music. Semantic memory retrieval was enhanced after listening to music, but creative cognition and semantic memory were not significantly correlated with mood. The findings show parallel, positive effects on creative cognition, semantic retrieval, and mood when subjects listen to music.
Creative Thinking in Music: Its Nature and Assessment Through Musical Exploratory Behaviors
Creative thinking in music has received only limited attention in the psychology of art and creativity, yet it appears to be one of the most important issues in the field of music education. As creative thinking in music exists in the general population and increasing evidence suggests the positive effects of active engagement with music, it seems that research on this topic offers promising implications beyond musical education itself. However, there is a lack of suitable measures of creative ability in music for individuals without prior musical training, and many important facets, such as the original use of sound material, are often disregarded in existing assessments. To fill these conceptual and empirical gaps-a prerequisite to any research on musical creativity-we present a new multimethod framework for its evaluation: the Musical Expression Test (MET). This method combines a systematic observational approach with a focus on musical exploratory behaviors and a product-based assessment of musical pieces resulting from musical activities, involving a sound-production set and a computer-based recording system. A study with the MET on a sample of adolescents with and without musical training is presented and provides the first empirical evidence of the MET's reliability, convergence between behavioral and product-based assessment, and suitability for individuals without particular musical skills. A typology of product-based "creative styles" and their behavioral correlates is presented. The potential uses and implications of the MET for the future of musical creativity assessment and research are discussed.
Is Noise Always Bad? Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition
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Creative cognition in composing music
New Sound, 2019
In this paper we presented an overview of theoretical and empirical research in a domain of cognitive psychology of music, psychology of creativity and interdisciplinary studies concerning the creative cognitive processes in composing music, with an intention to bring them into connection and to raise questions about further research. We brought into focus the cognitive processes in composing music since the key role of cognitive mechanisms and processes, next to the emotional experience and imagery, was shown in our previous research. The wide scope of knowledge, within a time span of some 35 years, was introduced covering the following themes - generative models of creative cognition, metacognitive strategies in composing, the relation between creativity, knowledge and novelty, creativity in the social-economical context. We paid attention to the several crucial theoretical models, some of them developed on the basis of exploration of compositional practices, one of the first bein...
Past research has directed minimal effort toward analyzing the potential music and sleep have on creative thinking. The purpose of this study aimed to identify if listening to music before sleep, would improve an individual’s ability to think creatively. To do so, 16 participants were randomly assigned to two conditions. The music condition was instructed to listen to a sedative soundtrack prior to bed. The non-music condition was instructed to not listen to any music prior to bed. The day after, participants were administered the Remote Associates Test (RAT) and Unusual Uses Test (UUT), which focused on analyzing creativity. The researcher sought to support the claim listening to music prior to bedtime increases an individual’s creativity. However, our data failed to show a significant interaction between music, sleep, and enhanced creativity. Therefore, a limited sample size could be interpreted as a reason for these findings.
The Influence of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition and Behavior
ACR North American Advances, 2011
Recent years have seen a rapid shift in consumer markets from being product-and firm-centric to one encouraging consumer involvement in mutual value creation by leveraging consumer creativity (Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004). In parallel, there has been a surge in research studying various aspects of consumer creativity, such as consumer created content (e.g., Moreau and Herd 2010) and the effects of constraints on consumer creativity (Moreau and Dahl 2009). Our research builds on this research by exploring the effects of an important environmental variable on consumers' creative performance. It is well accepted that consumers' physical surroundings can significantly affect their decisions, whether it is color, aesthetics or ambient scents. We focus on one aspect of physical surroundings that has received less attention-ambient noise. Although ambient noise is always present in consumption contexts, its effects on cognition and behavior are not well-understood. Our research contributes to this literature by exploring the underlying process through which noise may affect creative cognition. Specifically, we examine how different levels of background noise may affect consumer creativity and behavior. We propose that moderate compared to low levels of noise can actually enhance creativity. Based on prior research (e.g., Nagar and Pandey 1987), we theorize that a higher noise level distracts individuals and increases processing difficulty, which causes individuals to process more abstractly (Alter and Oppenheimer 2008). Because empirical work on construal level has shown that abstract construal enhances creative performance (e.g., Smith 1995), we hypothesize that a moderate level of ambient noise may increase processing difficulty, activate an abstract construal level, which subsequently may enhance creativity. Our experiments provide systematic support to our theorizing. In our research, we only use moderate (70 dB) and low (50 dB) levels of noise intensity. Although prior research has also used high noise levels (e.g., 95 dB, Nagar and Pandey 1987), such high intensity is (1) unlikely to be sustainable in a consumer environment and (2) has constantly shown negative effects across various studies and variety of tasks (e.g., Nagar and Pandey 1987). Consequently, high noise levels were excluded from our study. In addition to intensity, different types of noises have been used in past research, such as white noise, pink noise, jet engine noises, and incessant ringing of alarm clocks. In the present research, we blend a combination of different types of ambient noises to create a soundtrack of constantly varying background noise. In Study 1, we test our main hypothesis that a moderate (vs. low) level of noise can enhance performance on a creative task. We used Remote Associates Tests as our focal task to measure creativity. Results showed that respondents in the moderate noise condition performed significantly better on Remote Associate Tests compared to respondents in the low noise condition. Study 2 tests our central thesis in a more consumer relevant context. It examines whether a moderate (vs. low) level of noise enhances persuasion when a persuasive message requires creative cognition to comprehend. Results again support our theorizing.
Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2021
The “Different Hearing” program (DHP) is an educational activity aimed at stimulating musical creativity of children and adults by group composing in the classroom, alternative to the mainstream model of music education in Czechia. Composing in the classroom in the DHP context does not use traditional musical instruments or notation, instead, the participants use their bodies, sounds originating from common objects as well as environmental sounds as the “elements” for music composition by the participants’ team, with the teacher initiating and then participating and coordinating the creative process, which ends with writing down a graphical score and then performing the composition in front of an audience. The DHP methodology works with a wide definition of musical composition. We hypothesized that the DHP short-term (2 days) intense workshop would induce changes in subjective appreciation of different classes of music and sound (including typical samples of music composed in the DH...