Does listening to happy or sad Indian classical music affect heart rate and respiratory rate in healthy non-musicians?
Listening to happy Indian classical music increases both heart rate and respiratory rate, while sad music increases only heart rate, suggesting valence affects heart rate and arousal affects respiratory rate.
Music has a profound influence on physiological and psychological effects on humans. This research aimed to investigate emotional responses to two types of Indian classical music using their effective changes in physiological parameters (heart rate and respiratory rate) along with behavioral responses. Thirty two healthy non- musician participated in this study, where 17 participants' listened to happy music and the remaining 15 participants' listened to sad music. ECG and Respiration were recorded for seven minutes and behavioral data were obtained. There was significant increase in heart rate and respiratory rate while listening to happy music (p<;0.05) and a significant increase in heart rate were also noted while listening to sad music (p<;0.05) but no changes were observed in the respiratory rate. The valence was found to have a pivotal effect on heart rate whereas the arousal was found to have a crucial effect on respiratory rate.
Anuharshini et al. (Fri,) studied this question.