The Effects of Music and Verbal Suggestion on Heart Rate Self-Reports

Abstract: The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the effects of music and verbal stimuli on arousal of heart rate and self-reports of 80 graduate and undergraduate music students. Subjects were placed into one of four groups: (1) Bach's "Air on a G String", (2) suggestions of relaxation, (3) Bach's Air on a G String" plus verbal suggestions of relaxation, and (4) silence. Arousal was induced by the use of mental multiplication problems and recorded by two dependent measures, heart rate and self-reports assessed by the movement of fingers of the left hand that were associated with states of arousal. The major goal was to assess the effects of music plus verbal suggestions of relaxation on the two dependent measures. Treatments were presented in five identical two-minute temporal conditions which were preceded by one minute of arousal with the only differences between the four groups bein the temporal treatments (Music, Suggestion, Music plus Suggestion). The silence control group received only the arousal stimuli. Analysis of heart rate and self-report data for baseline levels indicated no significant differences among the four groups. Also, no significant differences in heart rate were found among the four groups as treatment variables. Although no treatment condition was shown to be any more effective than another, there was a significant difference between treatment and arousal conditions on heart rate (F = 60.26, df = 1, 152, p< .05) and self-reports (F = 90.35, df = 1, 152, p< .05). These results suggest that arousal was experimentally induced, and that heart rate did not differ significantly among the four treatment groups. Analysis of the self-report data indivated that perception of arousal was significantly different between the Music and Music/Verbal groups, and between the Music and Silence groups. There were no significant interaction effects on self-report between groups x arouasl. However, for heart rate, a significant interaction did occur between the four groups and the arousal/treatment conditions (F = 28.16, df = 3, 152, p< .05). This indicated a non-parallel relationship between arousal and treatment for the treatment groups.

Keyword(s): music, verbal-stimuli, heart-rate, music-student, relaxation-training, arousal, suggestion, self-report.

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