Combining Music and Indoor Spatial Factors Helps to Improve College Students’ Emotion During Communication

Abstract

Against the background of weakening face-to-face social interaction, the mental health of college students deserves attention. There are few existing studies on the impact of audiovisual interaction on interactive behavior, especially emotional perception in specific spaces. This study aims to indicate whether the perception of one’s music environment has influence on college students’ emotion during communication in different indoor conditions including spatial function, visual and sound atmospheres, and interior furnishings. The three-dimensional pleasure–arousal–dominance (PAD) emotional model was used to evaluate the changes of emotions before and after communication. An acoustic environmental measurement was performed and the evaluations of emotion during communication was investigated by a questionnaire survey with 331 participants at six experimental sites [including a classroom (CR), a learning corridor (LC), a coffee shop (CS), a fast food restaurant (FFR), a dormitory (DT), and a living room(LR)], the following results were found: Firstly, the results in different functional spaces showed no significant effect of music on communication or emotional states during communication. Secondly, the average score of the musical evaluation was 1.09 higher in the warm-toned space compared to the cold-toned space. Thirdly, the differences in the effects of music on emotion during communication in different sound environments were significant and pleasure, arousal, and dominance could be efficiently enhanced by music in the quiet space. Fourthly, dominance was 0.63 higher in the minimally furnished space. Finally, we also investigated influence of social characteristics on the effect of music on communication in different indoor spaces, in terms of the intimacy level, the gender combination, and the group size. For instance, when there are more than two communicators in the dining space, pleasure and arousal can be efficiently enhanced by music. This study shows that combining the sound environment with spatial factors (for example, the visual and sound atmosphere) and the interior furnishings can be an effective design strategy for promoting social interaction in indoor spaces.

Acoustics Perception in Special-Shaped Spaces: A Systematic Review

“…The complexity of the visual environment may lead to a downward trend in satisfaction and job performance, which is consistent with the effect of diversity in the acoustic environment [52]; the same pattern applies to learning spaces [31], where simple interior furnishings can enhance pleasantness.…”

“…The main result was that female students were more likely to perceive noise as being at annoying levels than males, with greater effects on attention and fatigue [35]. The effect on control was higher for single-sex groups than for mixed-sex groups in the musical context [31]. There was no significant difference between the genders in malls [49].…”

“…Most of the negative perception results in long spaces were associated with noise, especially in campus corridors. Comparing the environments of university campuses and primary school campuses, the results showed that on university campuses the sound of music caused a significant enhancement of pleasure and arousal in student communication, and this effect had little relation with spatial variability [31]. In contrast, on primary school campuses, the study of noise interference in the space showed that corridors were one of the worst spaces on campus for listening conditions due to more outdoor noise [35].…”

“…This article contains five articles about long spaces that function mainly as underground shopping streets [37,50,51] and school corridors [31,35].…”

Developing an Attention Assessment Tool for Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Timbre, Rhythm, and Pitch

“… 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 45 46 47 In healthy or neurotypical college students, music enhanced emotional perception during communication. 48 In a systematic review of music therapy, music led to outcomes such as improved social interaction, verbal communication skills, initiating behavior, and social-emotional reciprocity. 21 Boster and colleagues 25 realized that music could improve social participation in individuals with communication disorders.…”