Understanding Why People Enjoy Loud Sound

Abstract

Sounds at levels that can injure the ear are regarded as enjoyable by many people. In many societies, a common form of this behavior is listening to loud music, either via personal audio systems or at music venues. Drawing on theory from the literature around loud sound and emotional responses to music, and combining it with concepts of physiological sound adaptation and classical conditioning, we developed a model of the process that may underlie people's enjoyment of loud sound, particularly loud music in nightclubs. The Conditioning, Adaptation, and Acculturation to Loud Music (CAALM) model proposes that the benefits associated with loud sound, alongside other desirable aspects of nightclubs, provide the unconditioned stimuli. Over time regular clubbers become conditioned to enjoy loud sound in itself. Exposure to loud sound also causes adaptation within the auditory system, so there is both a desire for, and tolerance of, loud sound during leisure time. This sets up an expectation of loud music as a cultural norm, and staff of leisure venues, who are themselves part of that culture, set music levels to meet customer expectations; and a cycle is perpetuated. This theory may be a useful consideration for health promotion and hearing conservation interventions.

Music Listening as Coping Behavior: From Reactive Response to Sense-Making

“…Music, as such, can be annoying because it intrudes into the private sphere and can even become a kind of “acoustic violation,” given the penetrating power of loud sounds, if music is considered from the acoustic-vibrational point of view. Much depends here, however, on our subjective evaluation and the feeling of power [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ]. There are, as such, both subjective and objective criteria to perceive music as threatening (see [ 39 ]).…”

“…Habituation, moreover, has been shown to be very important in music listening, particularly in the case of loud music, as the auditory system is highly adaptive to high-level sound with physiological adaptation occurring at multiple sites in the cochlea [ 79 ] and in the cortex [ 80 ]. This explains to some extent the policy of club managers to raise the sound levels through the course of the evening, starting mainly at 85 dBA Leq and reaching levels of around 97 dBA Leq later on, so as to meet the so-called wishes of customers for loud sound [ 40 , 81 ]. One of the underlying mechanisms is the search for arousal and excitement by stimulation of brainstem mechanisms such as the reticular formation or reticular activating system (RAS), as seen in Figure 5 .…”

“…Listeners, in this view, may become conditioned to the loudness of the stimuli, which they then begin to like and to desire [ 40 , 41 ], which brings us to the phenomenon of addiction to loud sounds and the problem of maladaptive listening.…”

“…This model, coined as the CAALM model (short for Conditioning, Adaptation, and Acculturation to Loud Music), states that the benefits associated with loud sound provide the unconditioned stimuli that people may become conditioned to enjoy over time for itself. Exposure to loud sound may cause adaptation within the auditory system to facilitate the desire for and tolerance of loud sound during leisure time, and cultural acceptance has led to an expectation of loud music at many events and celebrations, which perpetuates the conditioning [ 40 ]. The costs of acoustic overexposure, however, are high with physical injury occurring within the cochlea including the hair cells, stria vascularis, synapses, and auditory nerve fibers [ 122 ].…”

The Evolution of Soundscape Appraisal Through Enactive Cognition

“…For example, a sense of pace or the passage of time, feelings of spirituality associated with the sonic environment, and an awareness of spaciousness, have all been identified using an essentially atheoretical approach to observing the soundscape (Welch et al, unpublished). Other research and theoretical work relating to the appreciation of loud music represents an understanding of an (artificial) soundscape, and concepts such as feelings of power or personal strength, and an experience of being transported to other worlds or imaginary realities have been reported ( Blesser, 2007 ; Welch and Fremaux, 2017a , b ). These qualities of the soundscape do not seem to be captured by the pleasantness/eventfulness dimensions and nor are they yet incorporated into the theoretical stance we have proposed here.…”