How (where) Does Music Background Hamper Driver Behaviour?

Objective: The current study examined the effects of music on Hazard Perception - a skill that serves as a proxy for safe driving.

Background: There is contradictory evidence whether or not music engagement leads to decremented driver performance and compromises traffic safety.

Method: In the study, 36 participants performed a standard Video-Based Hazard Perception Test under three aural conditions: Road and Traffic Sounds (RS); RS + Driver-Preferred Music; RS + Alternative Music.

The effect of beam slope on the perception of melodic contour.

Musical score reading is a complex task, which involves attending and interpreting multiple visual constituents that are graphically congested. The present investigation examined the 'beam', which although consistently found in music notation, is typically considered as providing no more information than marking metric boundaries (i.e.

Background music as a risk factor for distraction among young-novice drivers.

There are countless beliefs about the power of music during driving. The last thing one would think about is: how safe is it to listen or sing to music? Unfortunately, collisions linked to music devices have been known for some time; adjusting the radio controls, swapping tape-cassettes and compact-discs, or searching through MP3 files, are all forms of distraction that can result in a near-crash or crash. While the decrement of vehicular performance can also occur from capacity interference to central attention, whether or not music listening is a contributing factor to distraction is relatively unknown.

Mental representation: what can pitch tell us about the distance effect?

Reaction time (RT) profiles for comparing magnitudes (e.g., numbers, physical sizes) are similar - the larger the difference between the compared stimuli, the shorter the RT (distance effect).

The mental representation of music notation: notational audiation.

This study investigated the mental representation of music notation. Notational audiation is the ability to internally "hear" the music one is reading before physically hearing it performed on an instrument. In earlier studies, the authors claimed that this process engages music imagery contingent on subvocal silent singing.

The effects of metronomic pendular adjustment versus tap-tempo input on the stability and accuracy of tempo perception.

This study explores tempo stability and accuracy while comparing two subject-response modes: the traditional metronomic pendular adjustment task versus tap-tempo input. Experiment 1 questioned if a single correct tempo measurement consistently emerges from repeated listenings, and if subject-response mode affects tempo stability and accuracy. Experiment 2 assessed incremental improvement between two repeated sessions, and questioned the incidence of self-pacing or congruent effects of potential delays on tempo responses.

Auditory imagery from musical notation in expert musicians.

Anecdotal evidence has suggested that musical notation can trigger auditory images. Expert musicians silently read scores containing well-known themes embedded into the notation of an embellished phrase and judged if a tune heard aloud thereafter was the original theme (i.e.