The effects of music on time perception and performance of a driving game

There is an established and growing body of evidence highlighting that music can influence behavior across a range of diverse domains (Miell, MacDonald, & Hargreaves 2005). One area of interest is the monitoring of “internal timing mechanisms”, with features such as tempo, liking, perceived affective nature and everyday listening contexts implicated as important (North & Hargreaves, 2008). The current study addresses these issues by comparing the effects of self-selected and experimenter-selected music (fast and slow) on actual and perceived performance of a driving game activity. Seventy participants completed three laps of a driving game in seven sound conditions: (1) silence; (2) car sounds; (3) car sounds with self-selected music, and car sounds with experimenter-selected music; (4) high-arousal (70 bpm); (5) high-arousal (130 bpm); (6) low-arousal (70 bpm); and (7) low-arousal (130 bpm) music