Summary
Our folklore and mythology have attributed a potent effect to musical stimulation, and in modern terminology the musical effect has often been said to be therapeutic. Despite the present widespread use of musical stimulation as a therapeutic agent, and as a method to increase man's personal comfort, little is known about its actual usefulness in these situations, and still less is known about the psychological dynamics that may intervene between the stimulus and the hypothesized responses.
Some of the current applications of musical stimulation, and some of the research findings have been presented and reviewed critically. The meaning of the term “therapy”, as it has been used in the concept of music therapy, has been discussed.
The observations, that subjects performing an experimental task with music were oblivious to fairly loud background noises which would normally have obtruded into their awareness, led to the formulation of an explanatory hypothesis. This phenomenon suggested that the musical stimulation affected a narrowing of the focus of attention, a limiting of the over-all range of available stimulation.
It has been postulated that this effect ofnarrowed attention, produced by the musical stimulation, is similar to the psychological narrowing effect caused by central nervous system stimulation, by strong emotions, and also by a number of pharmacological agents. This theoretical formulation is consistent with the findings of other researchers who have studied the narrowed attention effect on the electrophysiological level.
It has been proposed that what has been vaguely termed the musical therapy effect is in actuality this effect of narrowed attention, and that many research findings and common observations in the area of human responses to musical stimulation are best explained on this basis.
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Colbert, J. On the musical effect. Psych Quar 37, 429–436 (1963). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01617743
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01617743