The Impact of Personal Music Use on Cognition and Emotion Part 1: Analysis of the HUMS Scale Healthy-Unhealthy Uses of Music Scale

MUSIC 8 MUSIC 1 The Impact of Personal Music Use on Cognition and Emotion Name of Student Institution affiliation The Impact of Personal Music Use on Cognition and Emotion Part 1: Analysis of the HUMS scale Healthy-Unhealthy Uses of Music Scale (HUMS) is used to assess an individual’s state of wellbeing and fitness with respect to the response on the presence or absence of music. Reflecting on the HUMS scale provided and calculating the score of each item on the healthy subscale results to five

Running head: MUSIC 1
The Impact of Personal Music Use on Cognition and Emotion
Name of Student
Institution affiliation

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The Impact of Personal Music Use on Cognition and Emotion
Part 1: Analysis of the HUMS scale
Healthy-Unhealthy Uses of Music Scale (HUMS) is used to assess an individual’s state
of wellbeing and fitness with respect to the response on the presence or absence of music.
Personally, music does not make me stop embracing it just because of its retrieval of unappealing
past events like death and funerals thus indicating the unhealthy lifestyle. Whenever I tune into
music even repetitively, I rarely get depressed or discouraged despite the life situations like
poverty or sickness which I happen to go through. As much as music occasionally induces
happiness in my heart, it also makes me come to a close of being pessimistic especially when I
play the motivational genres like gospel and rock (MacDonald, Kreutz& Mitchell, 2013). I never
take any kind of soothing music more personal just because of my introversive behaviors of
nonchalance and anti-socialism. Likewise, not ever do I lower my self-esteem nor get influenced
by opera to live in a world of fantasy and act unethically or illegally in reality. On the contrary, I
am always placid in the presence of singing thence indicating that am leading a productive life
even when I do not associate myself with my kind of people just because of it. I often times feel
much more contented after concentrating on a particular piece like soul music especially after
experiencing strenuous working conditions. Sometimes music motivates me to live positively.
Reflecting on the HUMS scale provided and calculating the score of each item on the healthy
subscale results to five points out of the thirteen points which is below half of the maximum
points thus indicating an unhealthy life conditions from music play (McFerran, 2015). The
analysis of all the items shows that I am likely to get affected by any physical complications and
diseases like hypertension and sclerosis due to listening to unhealthy music.
Part 2: Impact of Music on Cognitive Function

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Music greatly influences the entire nervous system including cognitive performances and
developments. As much as most people in the society listen to music perhaps for entertainment
and self satisfaction, many lack the concept of effect diversities like active learning,
imaginations, or anhedonia that music possesses on their cognition. The significance of music to
individuals involves the initiation of innovativeness, extroversion, cultural interaction, and joy.
To the society, it helps to elevate life expectancy by improving the levels of psychical fitness and
wellbeing. It also educates the public about the environment thus enhancing the learning
operations and results. It is dependent on the hearing process that begins sound passing through
the external auditory meatus, and the tympanum. It is then directed to the brain sensory nerves
through malleus, incus, and stapes. Then the brain identifies and analyses the information to
prepare a response mechanism for the stimulus. The Eustachian tube regulates pressure levels in
the internal ear for efficient transfer of sound waves. Musical activities involve various cognitive
functions those of highly trained musicians show increased plasticity as compared to untrained
musicians (Fiske& Taylor, 2013). Based on neuroimaging evidence, various review papers have
shown effects of musical training on neuroplasticity (Bermudez, 2013). Reports have shown the
brain structural grey matter differences between musicians and non-musicians by which the
singers have got a larger and bilateral grey matter similar to somatosensory areas (Corrigall,
Schellenberg& Misura, 2013). Further studies have also indicated a relationship between the
period of training as musicians and the volume of structural changes in the described regions,
where the corpus callosum of musicians trained for longer periods differed from those trained for
a shorter duration.
Although many differences are evident in the primary regions of musicians and non
musicians, there are also other differences. Findings have shown that plasticity either occurs in

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regions that serve as multimodal integration regions or those that have got control over non
secondary musical purposes thus enhancing the integration of musical training into other skills.
Research shows that long durations for musical training have got an influence on functional brain
connectivity in multi-sensory areas even in some research where individuals are not given any
tasks (Chanda& Levitin, 2013). Music greatly aids in linguistic skills, music training translates to
language-related skills(Kung, 2014). For instance enhanced neural differentiation of similar
sounds aids in the ability to distinguish sound in speech (Strait et al., 2013). Childrenundergoing
musical training have got the ability to distinguish sounds as opposed to those not undergoing
training, they also develop syntax ability both in music and language faster than their
counterparts, given the fact that music and language share the same auditory substrate learning
music greatly aids in linguistic skills. Music training also aids in second language acquisition,
reading abilities and verbal fluency.
Music training also enhances task performance on spatial skills. Though musical training
possibly leads to the development of spatial skills in children, this might not be the case with
adult musicians. Children with musical training also tend to score higher in vocabulary due to
their ability to learn linguistic skills faster than those not taking music classes. Research has been
carried out to try and illustrate how music increases intelligence. The music lessons for children
aids in memorization and mastery of technical skills which in turn translates to better scores in
other subjects and eventually leads to higher scores of general IQ (Schellenberg & Weiss, 2013).
This testlooks into cognitive performances such as the definition of words, visualization of
diagrams which normally indicate good mental arithmetic skills. Although there is a relationship
between educational achievement and family background, research also shows a relationship
between music involvement and academic achievement as seen in mathematics and reading

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skills. Engagement in music has a benefit on brain plasticity and physical abilities during an
individual’s adult life (Oechslin et al., 2013). At adult ages, there are a decline in cognitive
functions and neuroplasticity, physical and cognitive abilities (Blakemore, 2013). The study also
shows that fluid intelligence is affected by the volume of the hippocampus in musicians thus
music classes should be adhered to in order to be able to reduce the decline of fluid intelligence
due to old age. Melodies influence the behavior of individuals and groups of people in any
society since their beginnings and endings.
Part 3: Effects of Music on Emotions.
The relationship between music and emotions involves stimuli, body physiology,
affections, personalities, muscular conformations, articulate transmissions and reckoning.
Evaluation of the emotional responses require the incorporation of techniques like self-
assessment reports, psycho-physiological judgment, sensory expressions, operational neuron-
imaging qualitative analysis and implied intellectual, ideological and active learning method.
People can also elicit mixed reactions towards a given type of song( Skinner, 2014). For
instance, when individuals listen to songs that have cues to happiness, they end up being happy.
This happens because this kind of songs normally has lyrics that bring about sadness.Music can
also be used to manage stress. Research has demonstrated that music is indeed effective in
improving individual’s moods. Music affects psychological states by influencing the immune
system and neuroendocrine functions which play an important role in managing stress, thus
music which is appealing to the listeners can aid in stress management in case the person is
under stress (Thoma, La Marca, Brönnimann, Finkel, Ehlert& Nater, 2013). Of course, this
depends entirely on the type of music that one is listening to.Music composers normally
manipulate their songs in order to able to elicit the kind of emotions that listeners want, they do

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this by varying the different features of the song ranging from the tempo, lyrics in order to be
able to capture and influence the emotions of their audience(Thaut, 2013). This kind of
manipulation is what brings about the chills that are part of this kind of songs.
Singing is associated with the scientific concepts of the reflex system, cadenced
entrainments, judgmental programming, adoption, fantasy, anecdotal recollections, and musical
potential. The brain stem operations deal with the urgency in music as it affects the central
nervous system as well as the physiological activities like sweating to respond faster to a given
stimulus by enabling quick decision making processes on the content, and message of the music.
The integration of the singer and listener’s rhythms create a emotional coordination thus
maximizing on the task performance and message delivery levels. To determine the favorable
and unfavorable results of music on both the audience and artisans require evaluative
programming. For example, if a certain genre like rap is exposed to the gospel listeners, the
response from the audience would base on stress or denial due to unethical issues of aggression
and violence expressed in most rap music (Thoma, La Marca, Brönnimann, Finkel, Ehlert&
Nater, 2013). The contagion process involves assimilating and putting into practice the music’s
meaning by individuals. The imaginary perspective considers the listeners diverse creativity as
he or she makes up a new image that corresponds to the music tuned in. The intermittent memory
is where a person remembers certain past events based on the mood swings of happiness or
sadness. The music incorporated initiates nostalgic states due to the vivid remembrance. Any
kind of music possesses the power to change the type of responses as seen in the cases where
most of the hip-hop fans encourage brutality and aggression traits as a response to an unfit
environment or when introduced to controlled systems because they advocate for freedom of
speech and action.

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Music has the power to control the actions of the listeners throuhg their emotions. In the
30s there was a song known as the gloomy Sunday composed by a Hungarian pianist, this song
was inspired by the Great Depression and the events of the Second World War. This song ended
up being burned by the authorities because it made people commit suicide including the author
of the song. The content of the song made arouse the feelings of the listeners making them
commit suicide, thus can greatly influence what we feel and consequently our actions.Music also
has the ability to influence human psyche by affecting an individual’s emotions either negatively
or positively (Kawakami, Furukawa, Katahira& Okanoya, 2013). Music effects on individual
depend on the type of the genre, for example, rap songs make listeners aggressive because of the
aggressive lyrics. This type of songs affect brain areas that control emotional and lingual
processes hence resulting in aggressive behaviors, they provide listeners aggressive enjoyment in
an artistic perspective. Management of emotional behaviors relies on the antecedent and
response-directed methods. Antecedent-directed technique helps in uncertainty cases as it
determines the probable future activities of individuals regarding their health. Response-focused
strategy deals with introversion related cases like depression and dormancy that affect the mental
well-being of an individual (Garrido, 2015). Music aids in the implementation of the strategies as
it also causes and determines stimuli and emotional responses.
Part 4: Changes in Use of Music across a Life Time
Music enables the youth especially in adolescent stages to portray an image to the outside
world and it varies according to age and time. Melodies are normally used to enable the elderly
to maintain mental fitness and overcoming confusion and social withdrawal among other effects
from ailments like Alzheimer's and dementia which comes as a result of aging (Chanda &
Levitin, 2013). The aged normally listen to genres such as the blues or love songs mainly during

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therapy for divorce or reconciliation purposes (Thoma et al, 2013). They are also motivated by
some of the rock and rap music that allows them to feel younger or conduct physical exercises
well. Listening to music when one is an adolescent is normally aimed at the feeling of being
independent while when one becomes elderly it’s about gaining acceptance from others (Laiho,
2014). Adolescents listen to music when alone to incorporate the feeling of belonging
(Saarikallio, Gold & McFerran, 2015). The elderly on the other hand need the feeling of unity in
their respective families. As youths, sometimes we listen to elderly music together with them
because they require the satisfaction of their feeling of love and completion (Blakemore, Sarah‐
Jayne & Suparna). As individuals settle down into home and career matters, they are frequently
exhausted by work and family and would like to listen to relaxing and emotive music
(MacDonald et al, 2013). This is because of the challenges one experience in terms of nurturing a
family and maintenance of long-term relationships, during this period one is likely to experience
robust changes in the taste and kind of music that they adopt (Argyle, 2013). This is so because
as one grows the reasons for their music listening changes and they end up listening to soft music
such as pop and rap (Bonneville-Roussy, Rentfrow, Xu& Potter, 2013). The elderly listen to
appealing music for relaxation, unlike the youths that like belligerent melodies which captures
their attention and affects the way they behave.

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References
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unhealthy music scale. Child and adolescent mental health, 20(4), 210-217.
Garrido, S., & Schubert, E. (2015). Music and people with tendencies to depression. Music
Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 32(4), 313-321.
Bermudez, P., & Zatorre, R. J. (2013). Differences in gray matter between musicians and
nonmusicians. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1060(1), 395-399.
Blakemore, Sarah‐Jayne, and Suparna Choudhury. "Development of the adolescent brain:
implications for executive function and social cognition." Journal of child psychology and
psychiatry 47.3‐4 (2013): 296-312.
Skinner, B. F. (2014). Verbal behavior. BF Skinner Foundation.
Kang, H. J., & Williamson, V. J. (2014). Background music can aid second language learning.
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Bonneville-Roussy, A., Rentfrow, P. J., Xu, M. K., & Potter, J. (2013). Music through the ages:
Trends in musical engagement and preferences from adolescence through middle
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Chanda, M. L., & Levitin, D. J. (2013). The neurochemistry of music. Trends in cognitive
sciences, 17(4), 179-193.
MacDonald, R., Kreutz, G., & Mitchell, L. (Eds.). (2013). Music, health, and wellbeing. Oxford
University Press.
Thoma, M. V., La Marca, R., Brönnimann, R., Finkel, L., Ehlert, U., & Nater, U. M. (2013). The
effect of music on the human stress response. PloS one, 8(8), e70156.

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Schellenberg, E. G., & Weiss, M. W. (2013). Music and cognitive abilities. In The Psychology of
Music (Third Edition)(pp. 499-550).
Corrigall, K. A., Schellenberg, E. G., & Misura, N. M. (2013). Music training, cognition, and
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Appendix