Effect of Music on Stress Essay

The effects of music and other noise on stress, measured through physiological responses.
































Abstract
A study was carried out using 70 students from the University of Ulster Coleraine. The experiment used biopic heart rate and galvanic skin response equipment to measure changes in these two factors which are indication of stress, whilst a number of sounds were being played to the participants. The sounds played were no noise, white noise, classical music and self selected participants music. The results of the study show that no noise provided a baseline, white noise created stress responses with the lowering of galvanic skin response and the increase in heart rate, classical counteract the white noise, lowering heart rate and raising galvanic skin response but the most convincing results cam from the participants own music which gave vast reductions in heart rate and significant raising in galvanic skin response. The information gathered was studied using a one factor with subjects ANOVA and pair wise comparisons and has been deemed statistically significant. Further areas of study and implications have been discussed.











IntroductionGalvanic skin response has long been considered a measure of stress, and has been used as such in a variety of studies. An example of which would be the Baek, Lee,   Kim, Choi, Kim and Park study of Nonintrusive biological signal monitoring in a car to evaluate a driver's stress and health state. In this study an electrocardiogram, photoplethsmogram, galvanic skin response and respiration where all used as a method of determining whether a subject felt stress while driving. This study did prove that stress could be elicited by the act of driving a car. This study does show that the use of galvanic skin response as a measure of stress levels is acceptable.
Another method frequently used to measure stress levels is a subject heart rate and...