AUTHOR=Valevicius Darius , Lépine Lopez Anaïs , Diushekeeva Ajar , Lee April Chaewon , Roy Mathieu 

TITLE=Emotional responses to favorite and relaxing music predict music-induced hypoalgesia

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Pain Research

VOLUME=Volume 4 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pain-research/articles/10.3389/fpain.2023.1210572

DOI=10.3389/fpain.2023.1210572

ISSN=2673-561X

ABSTRACT=The hypoalgesic effects of music on pain have long been established. However, the characteristics of music which are important for reducing pain have not been well-studied. Some research has compared subject-selected preferred music to unfamiliar music selected by researchers, and has typically found a superior effect from preferred music. In this study, we sought to discover what aspects of listeners’ relationship with their preferred music was important in producing a hypoalgesic effect. To do this, we conducted a thermal pain and music listening experiment with 63 participants (14 male, 49 female, mean age = 21.3) and conducted brief structured interviews about their favorite music. We first replicated the finding that favorite music outperforms experimenter-selected relaxing music in reducing pain unpleasantness (MD = -7.25, p < 0.001) and that the difference in hypoalgesia was partially mediated by an increase in musical chills (ab = -2.83, p < 0.01). We then conducted a theme analysis on the interview transcripts and produced four themes relating to emotional experience: moving/bittersweet, calming/relaxing, happy/cheerful, and energizing/activating. We found suggestive evidence that moving/bittersweet favorite music reduces pain unpleasantness through increased music pleasantness (ab = -5.48, p < 0.001) and more musical chills (ab = -0.57, p = 0.004), while the other three themes are associated with lower levels of musical chills. In summary, we find that music pleasantness and musical chills are salient predictors of music-induced hypoalgesia, and that different categories of favorite music derived from qualitative analysis may engage these emotional pathways to different degrees.