http://blog.usanajan.com Health and Wellness weblog...mostly Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:02:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 http://blog.usanajan.com/music/music-affects-our-perceptions/ http://blog.usanajan.com/music/music-affects-our-perceptions/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:41:25 +0000 usanajan http://blog.usanajan.com/?p=136 More connections between music and our perceptions…and wine.  I read an article in Parade today about “Subliminal Advertising” – the author explains how the tempo of music played in a store has an impact on the length of time people spend shopping there.  Probably true – for me, at least.  The assumption is that a shopper who spends more time in a store is also more likely to buy something from that store, so a store owner may want to play music with a tempo slower than the human heartbeat.  I think this is fascinating!  I sure hope it doesn’t give music a bad reputation, but it does make you think.  The article went on to say that shoppers bought more German wine on days when German music was being played, and bought more French wine while listening to French music.  I’m afraid I would still choose the French wine most of the time, but if they’re playing slow, pretty music I might stick around to give all the wines a lot of consideration.  I think it must work both ways – some music has an undesirable impact on our perceptions/behavior.  I am reminded of how I was driven to avoid a certain store until they changed their light bulbs because the lights made such a loud buzz before they burned out.  I couldn’t bear to be in there!  This makes me wonder about making a lot of noise before dying…but that’s another topic.

]]> http://blog.usanajan.com/music/music-affects-our-perceptions/feed/ 1 http://blog.usanajan.com/music/perception-is-everything/ http://blog.usanajan.com/music/perception-is-everything/#comments Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:48:36 +0000 usanajan http://blog.usanajan.com/?p=49 Today on NPR they were reporting a study by a man in Scotland who hypothesized that music may affect our perceptions about how a wine tastes. What he found was that people gave wine much more powerful ratings when they were listening to music that they liked. I think that the music affected the people’s enjoyment of the wine and the intensity of the taste. I’m sure you can read more about it at Performance Today. The brain is powerful – what we think and perceive affects everything!
I just know that I feel better when I listen to music.

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