All or nothing: The interaction of musical and spatial atmosphere

Abstract

Atmosphere can be defined as the affective quality of an environment. Prior research has shown that music can influence how an environment is affectively perceived. In the current study, we systematically examined in three experiments how musical and spatial atmosphere interact and influence the overall valence of the atmosphere. In Experiments 1a ( n = 50) and 1b ( n = 136), we identified two rooms and two musical pieces that strongly contrast in the valence of perceived atmosphere. In Experiments 2 and 3, 32 participants each were exposed to the four combinations of rooms and music for 10-min periods on two different days. Perceived overall atmosphere was assessed. Musical and spatial valence both significantly affected the experienced overall valence of atmosphere. A significant interaction between music and room showed that making one aspect of a perfectly pleasant overall atmosphere negative had a much stronger effect than making one aspect positive in a totally unpleasant atmosphere. This suggests that pleasant atmospheres are particularly vulnerable, which might be explained by an attentional bias toward negative information. Future research should focus on examining fundamental psychological mechanisms underlying the constitution of perceived atmosphere.

Feeling time in nature: The influence of directed and undirected attention on time awareness

“…Thus, the alternative hypothesis—that high time awareness is confined to unpleasant circumstances—could not be supported. Previous studies mainly focused on the connection of negative valence and high time awareness (Conti, 2001; Ehret et al, 2019). Therefore, the determination of conditions that evoke an experience of pleasant time awareness could be the subject of further research.…”

“…Very few studies in timing research have used a self‐report measure of time awareness—in the sense of the subjective amount of attention paid to the passage of time—to systematically identify factors influencing time awareness (see, for example, Ehret, Schroeder, Bernet, Holzmüller, & Thomaschke, 2019). In contrast with time awareness, so‐called passage of time judgments (PoTJ) concern the subjective impression that time “drags” or “flies,” irrespective of the degree of time awareness.…”

“…For example, time was found to be estimated as longer and there was a tendency to feel that the passage of time was slower when individuals were exposed to a natural compared with an urban environment (Berry et al, 2015; Davydenko & Peetz, 2017). In terms of time awareness, it was generally found for room atmosphere, that spending time in a negative atmosphere evoked by music or room could increase it compared to a positive atmosphere (Ehret et al, 2019). In the present study, we compared an environment that is traditionally seen as highly restorative (i.e., forest) with an environment typically seen as having low restorative qualities (i.e., city).…”

The effect of music on the perception of outdoor urban environment

“…Unfortunately, in this experiment, we asked about participants' liking of music at the end of the entire experimental session, and we did not have data for their liking of music in the particular environments that were evaluated, which could have shed more light on this question. To shed light on the bilateral effect of music and the environment, Ehret et al (2019) investigated the influence of both spatial and musical surroundings on the perception of the overall atmosphere in two university rooms. They systematically manipulated the combination of two spatial surroundings and two pieces of music, with both pairs strongly differing in their valence.…”

Dynamics of temporal experience in active and passive waiting situations

“…In the present study, in addition to duration judgments based on clock time, we also focus on the subjective temporal experiences. Subjective temporal experiences involve the feeling of time dragging or flying, the so‐called passage of time judgments (Wearden, 2015), and the feeling of the passage of time being completely forgotten or very much in the focus of attention, the so‐called time awareness (Ehret, Roth, Zimmermann, Selter, & Thomaschke, 2020; Ehret, Schroeder, Bernet, Holzmüller, & Thomaschke, 2019). So far, these aspects of temporal experience were only measured by a single question asked at the end of the testing sessions.…”