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hubie writes:

Want to fire up the dance floor? Play low-frequency bass:

Researchers studying how different aspects of music influence the body turned a live electronic music concert into a lab study. By introducing levels of bass over speakers that were too low to hear and monitoring the crowd's movements, scientists found that people danced 11.8 per cent more when the very low frequency bass was present.

[...] "Music is a biological curiosity–it doesn't reproduce us, it doesn't feed us, and it doesn't shelter us, so why do humans like it and why do they like to move to it?"

[...] For this study, Cameron and colleagues recruited participants attending a LIVELab concert for electronic musical duo Orphx. The concertgoers were equipped with motion-sensing headbands to monitor their dance moves. Additionally, they were asked to fill out survey forms before and after the event. These forms were used to ensure the sound was undetectable, measure concert enjoyment, and examine how the music felt physically.

Throughout the 45-minute concert, the researchers manipulated the very-low bass-playing speakers, turning them on and off every two minutes. They found the amount of movement was 12 per cent greater when the speakers were on.

[...] "Very low frequencies may also affect vestibular sensitivity, adding to people's experience of movement. Nailing down the brain mechanisms involved will require looking the effects of low frequencies on the vestibular, tactile, and auditory pathways," says Cameron.

Journal Reference:
Daniel J. Cameron, Dobromir Dotov, Erica Flaten, et al., Undetectable very-low frequency sound increases dancing at a live concert [open], Curr Bio, 32, 21, 2022. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.09.035

Original Submission