Engineering, Music, & Cognition

Music is one of the most influential external factors on human emotion and behaviour. As citizens of the 21st century, we are subject to relentless manipulation from our environments: adverts, smells, branding, and whether we consciously recognise it or not, soundtracks. Musical soundtracks can influence us overtly; we listen to high tempo pop songs to elevate our mood, classical music to focus, meditative music for healing, or jazz to please our senses.¹ Although the soundtracks of retail, restaurants, markets, elevators, spas, and other consumer-driven locales attempt to cloak their musical manipulation in the subtlety of ‘the background’, closer inspection reveals the scientific and psychologically based design that informs these soundtracks.²

Neuroscientists have studies that confirm neurons fire in synchrony to the beat of music, so happy music can tangibly energise a listener. Scans show music triggers the release of oxytocin and serotonin – hormones responsible for bonding, trust, and intimacy. Further psychobiological research even specifies the effects of music on customer activity, employees in the workplace, and purchasing and affiliation.³ These physiological responses are linked to beat and tempo foremost, with lyrics secondary. This makes music a tool with the ability to cross language barriers and engage with people from all over the world.

In 1969, UNESCO passed a resolution outlining the human right to silence.⁴ At the time it wasn’t to combat the manipulation of people through music, but it underscores the global scale of this relationship between humans and sound. It goes undisputed that music is an emotional phenomenon. It is composed to evoke some response in the listener, and has been used for this purpose since the beginning of human civilisation, where it operated as much to promote solidarity within groups as hostility between others.⁵ Music’s ability to influence human attitude, motivation and behaviour at many levels and in many contexts is what makes it a tool to be engineered, for or against us.

Awareness of music’s influence over our cognition is crucial for two main reasons: to avoid subconscious and unethical manipulation of our decision-making in the context of consumerism, but also to capitalise on the positive and constructive potential of sound. If designers and artists can engineer music to have solely positive effects on our dispositions, attitudes, and virtues, they can make a moral impact on society. Music can be used as a tool to draw attention to issues, and impart strong emotions to an audience. The epistemic force of music can be used to ameliorate relationships and the power of expression. Medically, music can be paired with other healing therapies to treat the mental and physical conditions of patients.

Fundamentally, the connection between music and what could be considered ethics is tied up with its expressive power. In the right context this power grants listeners insight into new realms of emotional experience.⁶ This is the foundational consideration of every human-centred engineer: the user. In this way, music should become even more central to user experience. In the future, personalised data and analysis could be used to engineer sounds that resonate deepest with an individual and achieve a desired mental or spiritual influence, resulting in a tremendous expansion of a product’s impact. This makes music, or the lack thereof, an instrumental tool for design engineers.

Sources

[1] Effects of Music on Human Behaviour. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2020, from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/psychology/effects-music-human-behaviour-2756.php

[2] Mcguiness, A. (2008). Book Review: Music and Manipulation: On the Social Uses and Social Control of Music. Musicae Scientiae, 12(2), 359-365. doi:10.1177/102986490801200212

[3] Martin, P. J. (2013). Music and manipulation. Music and the Sociological Gaze. doi:10.7765/9781847792235.00008

[4] How Do Our Brains Process Music? (2012, October 01). Retrieved December 10, 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-do-our-brains-process-music-32150302/

[5] What is Music Theory? (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2020, from https://www.howmusicworks.org/51/How-Music-Works/What-is-Music-Theory

[6] Cox, D., & Levine, M. (2016, February 11). Music and Ethics. Retrieved December 10, 2020, from https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935321.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199935321-e-145