ON THE MUSICAL EFFECT BY J O H N
COLP*ERT,
Ph.D.
The question of whether musical stimulation can preduce any pGsitive effects on an individual's psychodynamic state has been answered in the affirmative by many in,dividuals working in tMs area o,f psychology. The mythology and folklore of o~r culture is certainly supportive of such a viewpoint. One need only recall the stories of David and Saul, or Orpheus and Euridice, to realize h(>w deeply rooted in our civilization ~s the belief that musical stimulation can be a potent agent and force. Reviewing the literature on the subject, one is, ho,wever, forced to burrow through a morass of repetitious historical background material to unearth even a small morsel o,f empirical evidence de~nons~trative ,of :significant relationship between the mus~ic~s,timu]us and psychological processes. This paper is intended tG provide a broad perspective on this area of interest, to present briefly the major prevailing views in the field, to summarize the ava~able experimental e~dence, and to offer a new theoretical interpre~ution of the musical effect. MODER~ CONCEPTIONS OF MUSIC Early concepts and uses of music to enhance man's well-being have already been adequately reviewed. 1, 2 Modern, late nineteenth and twentieth century, c(>nceptions of mnsic began with an observation b y the German philosopher Hanslick, 8 to the effect that musical dynamics resemble certain dynamic patterns of human experience and behavior. The psychologist Koehler 4 concurred with this view, and cited terms such as crescendo, accelerando, and ritardando as being equally descriptive o,f m~sieal dynamics and of hu~nan psycholo~cal proces~ses. W h i l e the German philosophic movement was attempting to answer the ontological question o,f what is music, other groups avo,ided this challenge and simply accep*ed the age-old belief that music does influence the human psychodynamic state. Included among these latter group,s were members o,f the psychoanalytic movement whG attempted to explain the how and why of music in dynam4c psychological terms. Montani,5 in a brief undocamented re~o,rt, related the "mysterious feelings of sadnes~s developed by the m~nor mode to unconscious feelings of self-p~nishment or
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masochistic demands arising from the basic c~stration complex." Pfeifer 6 believed that music prou a means of escaping from reality. I-Ie framed the proposition that music is "pure liMdo symbolism lacking objectification or cathexis." Sherman, ~ who based his views on some isolated observations, related autism in children to mu.sicM precocity and to unu, sual fondness for music. Outside of the p,sFchoanalytic movement, the writings of Van de Wall s and Po,&o~sl~y9 aroused much interest in the idea that music is a veritable panacea for the treatment of the mentally ill. The widespread interest, the number of personal opinions, theo.retical ~ormulations, and experimentally unsub,stantiated ideas ~bout the relationship o~ music to psychodynamic processes produced a strong skeptical reaction from those srcientificMly~minded individuals who were interested in this general preblem. They asked for proof and not for theory, for facts rather than for opinions. Diominant in this group was the philo,sopher Susan Langer, who,, in a book entitled Philosophy in a New Key 1~ stated "music ~s known, indeed, to affect pulse rate and re:sp~ratioa, to facilitate or to disturb concentration, to excite or relax the organism, while the stimulus lasts, but beyond evoking impulses to sing, tap, adju~st one's step to musical rhythm, perhaps to~ stare, hold one's breath or take a tense attitud% music does~ not ordinarily influence behavior." Langer concluded that "~usic's...somatic effects are transient, and it:s moral hangovers or uplifts seem to be negligible." Gutheil, ~1after reviewing the h~erature, agreed with this conservative posit~on and stated : "One, carefully observed and recorded clinical fact weighs more than volumes of glib speculations ,on the value of muMc therapy." Ma~sserman, ~ too, urged a more cautd:o~s approach when he stated in a humorous but ~cisive speech before a convention concerned with the therapeutic effects of mu,sic: "I have on several occasions during ~hese conventions shared my concern in the matter of reminding my friends that, strictly speaking, the term 'mu~sie therapy' is really a misno~a~r for an incredibly complex process in which music can be used as a me a~s o~f initiating communication and empathy between the therapist and patient." After seeming to have known everything abont the musical e~ect, some people wanted just to know something about it. SOME APPLICATIONS OF THE ~/[USICAL EFFECT While these writers attempted to danvpen the optimistic think-
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ing which pervaded the general area of interest loo,sely termed music therapy, others were little troubled by doubts as to the ther'apeutic efficacy of music and developed musical programming along strictly pragmatic lines for a variety of situation,s. They a_ppro ached the relationship of music to man from the point .of view that the musical stimulus contributes a welcame d~straetion fo.r the individual under certain conditions. The need for" a stimulus to distract people from monotony (or from their reactions to monotony) was evidently heightened by the work-fragmentation and the resulting repetKiveness of much o.f the factory work in this age of extensive industrialization. The initial experiment in using music for this purpose is attributed to Thomas E diso,n.1~ In 1915, he experimented with the musical medium, but ~ s efforts were frustrated because he lacked suitable so~und-repir'oduclng equipment. When high quality electronic equipment did become available, the idea was first applied at random for some year,s on an uncontrolled and haphazard basis. In 1938, ~Vya.tt and Langdon prepared a report Oll the use of music to co~nbat fatig~le and boredom in a factory. They concluded, on the basis of comparative production figures, that musical stimulation effectively distracted the workers from their boredom and fatigue. I t was not until 1942 that a report on some controlled studies was made, showing a number of positive effects that musical ,stimulation had on production, absenteeism, and early departure of wo.rkers? 4 The Second World W a r required maximtlm production, and it became United States and British go.vernment policy to encourage the technique of musical stimulation to keep output at =a high level. Not altogether satisfied with such an empirical approach, C ardinelP 8 commented on the po,stwar situation: "Despite Profe,ssor Burris-Meyer's demonstrated success with m~sic programmed specifically for the relief of fatigue and boredo,m, the functionM approach to the task was largely bypassed... " It appears that fairly obvious principles concer~ing effective musical ,s,timulation for the purpo,se of distracting ~ac~ory worker,s from their tedium had been evolved out of a purely practical appro.ach. Among these ideas were the notions that distorted s,o,und is irritating and annoying, that the loudness of the mu~sic m~st bear a certain relationship to the noise produced by the factory machinery, and that the musical preference of the worker should be eon,sul,ted.
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EFFECT
EFFFCT THERAPEUTIC?
One must digres,s for a moment to ask whether it is justified to. characterize the assumed and the demonstrated effects o.f musical ,s.timulation as therapeutic. Few would argue that David's interventio,n and file reported resolution of Saul's depressive episode are unimpressive--even by the mest modern standards. Some psychoar~alysts have made the assumption that muMe has an impac* upon be.sic, underlying personality dynamics, but they do, not conceive of the musical stimulus as necessarily producing a positive effect. These as.sumptions actually go hack to Plato who believed that character could be molded by music in various ways, the result being a reflection of the music chosen for the purpo,se. Van de Wall 8 and Podo~lsky ~believe implicitly that music is a highly potent therapeutic device, and that miraculous cures a r e obtained by its use. They do not define what they mean by therapy; but one wonders why the mental institutions remain crowded at a t~me when music is played to the patients during many o~ their waking ho.urs. And, as applied to the industrial scene, the workers' increased sense of comfort in their everyday work situation would be taken as a therapeutic effect. By a ~ e p t i n g ,such a definition of therapy, one is forced to consider a pleasing color s ~ e m e in the facto,ry walls, and also a calculated distributio~n of some a*tractive female workers among a general male work force as constituting effective therapeutic devices. This is quite justified as long as one is aware of the fact that the concept o.f therapy has been extended here far beyond its usual .definition. EXPERIMENTAL EVIDEN(~E ]~OF~ A ~/[USICALEFFECT
An early interest ~n the possible clinical Mgnificance o.f musical stimulation was taken by Critehley, ~ who described 11 cases o.f mus~cogenie epilepsy, that is, epilepsy induced by musical sounds. In a comprehensive review, Critchley referred to, nine other s.ueh cases culled from the literature. He went beyond a mere descripti,on of an observed relationship between m~sic and behavior by suggesting that a conditioned reflex to certain musical s~ounds may be present in these pathological reactions to. musical ,s~Lraulation. Skelly and ttaslerud ~r investigated the more general relationship of musical stimulation to psychological functioning. In an apparently wel,l-c~ontrolled experiment, the:activity level of 39 ho,spitalized, apathetic, schizophrenic patients was as,sess~ed under
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the conditions of the presence and absence of musical stimulation. The experimenters found that music had the power t~o raise the activity level of the group significantly for short periods. Afterward, the group would revert to its prior level of activity. Skelly and tIaslerud concluded that the effects .of mu,sical stimulation apoear to be temporary, and that music lends i~self to. use as an adjunCt to therapy, rather than to use as a primary therapeutic agent. They did not speculate about the dynamic mechanisms that may be affected by this stimulus. An even more sigmificant ,study concerning the relationship of musical stimulation to psychologieal functioning was performed by Alexander? 7 That investigator attempted to. measure, by means of figure drawings, the effects of stimulating and pac4fying music on the emotional tone in normal subjects. Alexander's two major conclusi~ons were that stimulating music gives rinse to e x i t e d psychomotor patterns, and that soothing music causes the oppo.site effect. The present writer became interested in investigating soane of the psychological processes that might iate rvene between the musical ,stimulus and the behavioral responses. The results of this study 18 led to the conclusion that manifest anxiety, as defined by Camero~ TM and as measured on the Taylor Scale o,f Mans Anxiety ~~does not appear to be a significant intervening psycho,logical variable between the musical stimulus and the r~sponse. Still, this general type of approach to the problem appears to hold the promise of clarifying some of the psychodynamic i.ssaes involved in the response to musical stimulation. A N E W INTERPRETATION OF T H E MUSICAL EFFECT As happens not infrequently, some observations were made in this last inves~gation which prompted the author to, adopt a somewhat changed view af the question of what happens to the individual when he is subjected to musical ~sti~ula;fion. These o~servations arose from spontaneous and independent reports of a nmaber of the experimental subjects (university s t u d e n t s ) t o the effect that, while perfGrming the ex2aerimental r with music, they were oblivious to the background noises ,of ~studen~s milling o,utside the classroom, and they we.re not aware of the bells in the hall which rang from time to time. These s~bjects reported an experience of puzzlement and mystification in the situa-
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tion. W~at such introspective observations seem to suggest is that the musical stimulus affected a narrowing of the focus of attention, and a heightening of concentration on a reduced segment of the over-all range of available stimulation. The (~bservation that central nervous system sthnulation, and strong emotions as well, can produce s~ch a psychological narro,wing effect is not new. Callaway ~1 had no,ted that "people become 'numb with fear,' and 'blind with rage.' The football player ignores his broken hand until the whistle blows:.." The same narrowing effect has been achieved by the use ,of pharmaoologicM agents such as amyl nitrate, nerve gas,ses, and methamphetamine. ltern~ndez-Pe6n and his co-workers ~ have confirmed this nar, ro,wed attention effect (which they term "the constantly limited span o,f perception") on the electrophysiological level. They write: "Fac41itatlon of the electrical activity in one sensory pathway is always a~c.ompanied by blocking of sensory tr~ansmis,si.on in other afferent pathways, and this phenomenon occ,ur*s alternatively from one mo~.nent to the next in the ~ar~ious sens,ory systems. It ,seevas that ,since the amount of informatio,n the w a n g brain can manage at any given moment is limited, a selection is accompartied ,by facilit.afing sensory transmission fo,r the meaningful afferent signals and by simultaneous blocking ~o.fthe remaining incoming signals to the central nervous system." In term,s .of the explanatory hypothesis .of ~arrowed attentio.n, the ~of~en-observed positive effect of music .o,nthe mental state of pathol.ogicMly disturbed or merely distracted individuals woald become mo.re readily explainable. If an individual's reality, h.is experience of the world, is influenced by depressive ideation, by somatic preoccupations, or by the more commonplace experience o~f boredom and fatigue, then the psychological effect o.f the. musicM ~stimulation may be that of limiting the individuaFs attentionfield, and reducing the impact of these distarbing ~subjective fa~to.rs that contribute to the person's reality experience. The obserrations of ,Skelly~ and those of Langer 1~that the effects of mu,s~cal .stimulation are transient, would also be consisten~ with this general propo,sition. This theoretical formulation would not account for an effect lasting very much beyoJnd the duration of the m~s~al stimulus itself. Further, the summary of e~perSmental evidence has not produced convincing evidence that the effects .of musical stimulation are more than temporary. As s~ch, the onus o.f proof
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remains on those who wish to show ~hat there are, more lasting effects. The hypothesis of narrowed attention, which ha~s been offered here, thus makes it possible to explain a number of the observed e~ect:s o.f mus.ica] stimulation, and it leads to the formulation of some answers to questions concerning the musical effect. Perhaps equally important:, it permits one to gain Mgnificant clue,s concerning the q~estion, "By means of what mechanisms does music affect man ?" SUM2iiARY Our folklore and mytho.logy have attributed a patent effect to musical stimulation, and in Inodern terminolog~y the musical effect has o~ften been said to be therapeutic. Despite the present widespread u~se of musical stimulation as a thex:apeuti~ ageI~t, and as a method to increase man's personal eo.mfort, little is known about its actual usefulness in these situations, and still less is knewn about the psychological dynamics that may intervene bet~ween the stimulu,s and the hypothesized responses. Some of the current applications of musicM stimulation, and some of the research findings have been presented and reviewed critically. The meaning of t~e term "therapy," as it has been used in the concept of music therapy, has been discussed. The observations, that subjects performing an ex.perime..ntal task with music were oblivious to fairly loud backgr.o~und noise,s which would normally have obtruded into their awareness, led to the formulat.ion of an explanatory hypothe:sis. This p,henomenon suggested that the musical stimulatio.n affected a narrowing o~f the focus of attention, a limiting of the over,all range o~f available stimulation. It has been postulated that this effect of narrowed attention, pro.d.uced by the musical stimulation, is similar to the. psycho.logical narrowing effect caused by central nervous system stimulation, by strong emotions, and also by a number of p~armaaological agent,s. This theoretical formulation is coasistent with the findings o.f other researchers who have studied the narro,wed attention effect on the electrophysiolog~cal level. It ~ s been proposed that what has been vaguely termed the mu.sical therapy effect is in actuality this effect o~f narrowed at-
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ten~on, and that many research findings and co,rnrnon observations in the area of human responses to rnu~sical stimulation are best explained on this basis. Veteran;s Administration Hospital W~st Spring Street West Haven 16~ Connecticut !~EFERENCES 1. Diserens, C., and Fine, H. : A Psychology of Music. Co]lege of Music. Cincinnati. 1939. 2. Schullian, D., and Schoen, M. (editorS): l~fusie and 1Vfedicine. Henry S~human. New York. 1948. 3. Hanslick, E.: Von M.usikalisch-schoenen. J. AI Berth. Leipzig. 1891. 4. Koetder, W.: Gestalt Psychology. Liveright. New York. 1929. 5. Montani, A. : Psychoanalysis of music. Psychoan. Rev, 32: 223-227~ 1945. 6. Pfeifer, S.: Problems of psychology of music in t h e light of psyclmanalysis. Abstracted in: Int. J. Psychoan., 498-499, 1922: 7. Sherman, A.: Reactions to music in autistic children. A~n. J. Psyckiat, 109: 823-831, 1953. 8. Van de ~Vall, W.: The Utilization of Music in Pl~sons axtd ]~/~ental I-~osl~itals. For the Committee for the Study of Music in Institutions. T]ae National Bureau for the Advancement of Music. New York. 1924. 9. Podolsky, E.: Music For Your Itealth. Bernard Ackerman. New York. 1945. 10. Langer, Susan: Philosophy in a New Key. New American Library of W.orld Literature. New York. 1942. ]1. Gutheil, E.: Music and Your Emotions. Liveright. New York. 1962. 12. Masserman, J.: Music and the child in society. Am. J. Psych other, 8: 63-(~7, 1954. 33. Cardinell, R.: Music in industry. I n : Music and Medicine. D. Schullian and 1~. Schoen, editors. Henry Sehuman. New York. 1948. 14. Wyatt, S., and Landon, J. : Fatigue a n d boredom in repetitive work. Quoted by R. Cardinell. I n : Music and Medicine. D. Schullian and M. 8ehoen, editors. Henry Schuman. New York. 1948. 15. Critchley, M.: iVfusicogenic epilepsy. Brain, 60: 13-2.7, 1937. 16. Skelly, C., and Haslerud, G.: Music and th e geaeral activity af apathetic schizophrenics. J. Abhor. and Sue. Psychol., 47: 2, 188-192, 1948. 17. Alexander, H. : An investigation on the effects of music on personality by way o~ figure drawings. Am. 3": Psyehother., 39: 687-702~ 1954. 38. Colbert, g.: The effects of musical stimulation on recall in high and 10w anxiety college students. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. 17ew York University. 1960. 19. Cameron, N.: The Psychology o f Behavior Disorders. I=~oughton Mifflin. Boston. 1947. 20. Taylor, Janet: A personality scale of manifest anxiety. J~ )~bnor. and Soc. PsychoL, 48: 2, 285-290, 1953. 21. Call,way I I I , E., and Dembo, D.: Narrowed attention. Arch. 17eurol. and Psychiat., 79: 74-90, 1958. 22. Herns H. ; Brust-Carmona, .~I., and Penoloza-lCojas, Bach-y-Rita~ G. : The Efferent Control of Afferent Signals Entering the Central Nervous System. Annals New York Academy of Sciences, 89: 866-882~ 1961.