Modulación del estado de ánimo a través de estímulos musicales activantes. Un diseño experimental con adultos jóvenes

Music, from its several possibilities, induces emotional responses, which are reflected in the physiological and cognitive changes of the listeners, this is a thematic of study in common among different disciplines: music psychology, music therapy, music anthropology, neuropsychology, among others. At the neuroanatomical level, neuroimaging studies have shown that music can modulate the activity of limbic and paralimbic structures, that is, structures that are especially involved in the initiation, generation, maintenance, completion and modulation of emotions. Being able to understand how music can affect the mood of people allow us to contribute to the creation of new techniques oriented to emotional regulation through music. The current study was develop with the aim of evaluating the effect of perception of a musical piece, with activating characteristics (experimental group) vs. white noise (control group), as mood modulator, from a neurosientific perspective. Participated 29 young adults (55 % man), between 18 to 40 years old ( M = 22.07, SD = .43), with no presence of neurological diseases or amusia, nor consumption of medications at the time of the study. The selection of the musical piece with activating characteristics was evaluated in a preliminary study, which counted with the participation of 24 young adults, who valued three pieces of music in terms of valence (emotion that the piece generated) and arousal (activation level). The 3 pieces were: “Tika Tika Walk” by Carlos D’alessio; “Leafmen” by Danny Elfman and “Define Dancing” by Thomas Newman. From this preliminary study, the activating stimulus that would be used for emotional modulation was selected (“Leafmen” by Danny Elfman). The emotional induction of the participants was carried out through the observation of 24 images with negative emotional valence (extracted from International Affective Picture System). About procedure, the study consisted of a single session of activity, divided into the following five phases: (1) information phase: participants signed the informed consent and completed the socio demographic questionnaire, (2) emotional induction phase: participants observed 24 negative images, and they had to rate each image from 0 to 10 (not arousing/emotional at all to highly arousing/emotional), (3) pre- measurement phase: participants completed a scale of mood, instrument used to measure transient moods, (4) perception phase: under a random distribution, a group of volunteers listened the activating music piece and another group listened the white noise (both for 3 minutes), and finally (5) post-measurement phase: participants completed a scale of mood after music or white noise perception. We analyzed the assumptions of normality and homogeneity of the sample using the statistics of Levenne and Shapiro Wilk. The results analyzed through non-parametric tests (Wilcoxon test, with a p value of .05). In the pre- measurement of mood, no significant differences were found between groups. Results of post- measurement phase indicated that music with activating characteristics, modulated the emotions of sadness and anxiety, decreasing them significantly. The results obtained indicate that music, specifically selected, aided as a modulator of emotions. It is important not to generalize the results obtained to the whole population, in this sense and thinking in future research, it would be necessary to expand the sample to a larger n , as well as to investigate this effect in other samples. The results obtained allow to open new paths in terms of the intrinsic qualities of music and its elements to promote relief of anxiety and stress, regulate moods and, promote motivation or enable the development of mechanisms to adapt to situations new and/or traumatic. Finally, it could be assumed that music constitutes an effective stimulus to modulate emotional responses, which are reflected in the mood changes of the listeners.