Comparison of music stimuli to support mindfulness meditation
Psychology of Music November 11, 2019 Abbey L. Dvorak, Eugenia Hernandez-Ruiz
Fifty-seven undergraduate non-musicians listened to four types of auditory stimuli during mindfulness meditation: a script alone, a steady beat, beat with harmony, and beat with harmony and melody. When controlling for absorption in music, there was no significant difference in mindfulness scores across the four conditions. Without that control, significant differences emerged, suggesting that a person's tendency to become absorbed in music moderates how different sounds affect mindfulness. Participants ranked the melody and harmony conditions as most useful and preferred for meditation.