Perhaps you’re a huge fan of heavy metal and love going to the concerts, concerts where you can have a great time and release built up stress. Or perhaps you are the exact opposite, where heavy metal music irks and annoys you, causing you to be anxious and nervous. Or maybe you are ambivalent, and don’t care either way. Whatever the case may be, I came across an interesting study today and would like to share it with you.
A student named David Merrill designed an experiment to test the effects of music on animals. He decided to use mice as his test subject. He wanted to see how music would affect the mice in their ability to learn new things. To that end, the mice were divided into two groups. One group listened to classical music 24 hours a day and the other group listened to heavy metal music. David then planned to send the mice through a maze and time their speed. Unfortunately, the experiment failed because the mice listening to the heavy metal music ending up
killing each other before they had the opportunity to go through the maze.
Classical Music Focusing Power!
David then conducted another experiment. This experiment was designed to test the effects of music on the mice’s intellegence. Initially, he allowed the mice to go through the maze and then later he separated them and had them listen to classical or heavy metal music. The mice that listened to the classical music dramatically increased their maze solving abilities while those that listened to the heavy metal became worse at solving the mazes.
From this experiment many people conclude that heavy metal music causes people to go insane and crazy. Heavy metal music also causes increased violence and suicides. Further, they believe that everyone should listen to classical music to enhance their intelligence.
However, this isn’t a valid conclusion. After researching around on the internet, I found studies proving that heavy metal music purges negative emotions. These two studies show that music affects different people differently. It’s impossible to look at one study and make strong conclusion, which sadly, is what many people do.
Heavy Metal Conclusion
Every person is different. Every person has different tastes in music; some like heavy metal and some like classical piano. An interesting research to conduct would be to investigate why people have such diverse tastes in music, and why similar music can have different affects on different people.
Consequently, heavy metal music will affect different people in different ways, some positively, and some negatively.
