Music and motivation

Made by: Lotte Segers, Sophie Daudey and Milan Everaerts

Research question
Are people more motivated to do something boring with music?

Subquestions
1. Are people more motivated with music they know?
2. Are people more motivated with calm or heavy music?

Hypothesis
We think people are more motivated with music on but not with music they know. We also
think they are more focused with calm music because with heavy music they are more
distracted to the music and with people they know they will listen to the music and they
wont work.

Literature study
Why does music motivate us?

Music motivates us because of its capacity to energize and increase endurance. How does
music boost motivation so strongly and otherwise help get us through the most tedious of
tasks? One of musics energizing effects comes from its ability to engage the bodys
sympathetic nervous system. The activation of this system readies the body for action
whenever we face a challenge in our environment. Airways open, the heart rate accelerates,
and muscles are primed to move. Auditory signals abrupt sounds or those that suddenly
increase in frequency or volume trigger alerting responses and increase physiological
arousal.
Music is comprised of these and other patterns of sounds that have been shown to affect
levels of physical excitability. A simple increase in the pace of the music we listen to, for
example, can quicken our pulse and accelerate our breathing. And this can be great for
physical exercise or a boring task that might otherwise lull you to sleep.
Music does also affect collaboration of activities in our brains. Studies investigate patterns of
electrical activity across the brain suggest that synchronization of brain signals is important
for linking perceptual, cognitive and motor processes.
Recent results suggest that a repetitive beat, such as that in a musical rhythm, synchronizes
brainwaves in ways that may be particularly helpful in connecting what you hear with how
you move. The co-ordination and execution of repetitive muscle movements may be made
more efficient by matching the movements to a musical beat. This may explain why
individuals strategically running to a beat run faster and use less oxygen than those who do
not run with music.
Physical and mental endurance can also be enhanced by musics capacity to draw our
attention away from the negative aspects of a task. The brains attention system, which
includes some of the top and outermost regions of the frontal and parietal lobes, acts to
enhance neural activity in areas that contribute to whatever we are focused on and reduce
activity from other areas of the brain.
Focusing on a favourite song combats de-motivating brain signals associated with tiredness
or boredom. In the exercise domain, this has been shown to be particularly effective in
moderately intense exercise. And while music does not seem to reduce the perceived strain of
highly intense exercise, upbeat music has been shown to increase positive feelings about the
intensity of the exercise compared to those of individuals in the same study who listened to
less intense music.
Indeed much of musics power lies in its ability to get emotional reactions and enhance
mood. Recent neuroimaging investigations have allowed a dramatic increase in our
understanding of how different networks of emotion- and motivation-related brain regions are
recruited to produce these affective experiences from the visceral shiver running down
ones spine, to the sense of empowerment that can arise from a good set of lyrics, or intensely
positive memories associated with a favourite piece of music.
So the next time you face a boring task, think of a strategic musical choice to give your brain
and body a motivational boost.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/conditions/why-does-
music-motivate-us/article542629/
 Why does music move us???
According to Levitin, the brain works to arrange music and other sounds into a
coherent whole based on experience and expectations. To understand the emotional
effects of music, scientists are working to understand how these expectations turn
sounds that originate outside of the brain into neural patterns inside of the brain.

Researchers have shown that music stimulates the cerebellum, a region of the brain
crucial to motor control. Levitin says connections between the cerebellum and the
limbic system (which is associated with emotion), may explain why movement,
emotion, and music are tied together.

Levitin says that music is more than entertainment: It is a regulating force for our
moods. Because of its strong ties to our emotions, we rely on music to wake us up,
calm us down, entertain us, and motivate us something a balanced checkbook
cant quite match.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/why-does-music-move-us#.WJHY-3kz
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