On the Effect of Background Music Preference on Emotions During Walking

Abstract

Objective: To study the influence of background music preference on emotion during walking.
Method: The experiment is a single factor research design, and the independent variable is the type of background music
(preferred, disliked, no background music). The subjects performed three 20-minute walking tasks with no background music,
favorite background music, and disliked background music during the experiment. After the experiment, the positive and negative
affect scales (PANAS) were filled to compare the difference between positive and negative emotion in the three tasks through
statistical analysis.
Result: It was found that people’s preference for background music affected the foreground work emotions. Subjects’ positive
emotions increased under the background music they liked, and their negative emotions aggravated under the background music
they disliked.