Brief mindfulness meditation shifts music-evoked aesthetic emotions toward more positive experiences in community-dwelling older adults

Background: Brief mindfulness meditation can alter emotional processing during music listening, yet evidence on musical aesthetic emotions has been concentrated in younger samples. Extending this work to later life is theoretically relevant because older adults bring decades of accumulated musical experience to listening, which may shape their aesthetic emotional responses. The present study examined whether brief mindfulness meditation changes the intensity of musical aesthetic emotions in community-dwelling older adults.

Methods: A between-group design compared a mindfulness music group (MMG; n = 96) with a music listening group (MLG; n = 95). Musical aesthetic emotions were assessed using the 33-item Geneva Emotional Music Scale (GEMS). Music familiarity and musical expertise were entered as covariates in the primary model, whereas state mindfulness was assessed before and after listening as a manipulation check. Group differences were examined with a one-way multivariate analysis of covariance followed by false-discovery-rate-corrected univariate analyses of covariance.

Results: Manipulation checks showed no baseline group differences in state mindfulness, whereas the MMG reported higher post-listening state mindfulness and larger baseline-to-post-listening increases than the MLG (all p s < 0.001). The multivariate group effect on GEMS responses was significant after controlling for music familiarity and musical expertise, Pillai's trace = 0.211, F (9, 179) = 5.32, p < 0.001. Relative to the MLG, the MMG showed higher adjusted scores on Transcendence, F (1, 187) = 21.75, p FDR < 0.001, η p 2 = 0 . 104 , and Peacefulness, F (1, 187) = 6.47, p FDR = 0.035, η p 2 = 0 . 033 , whereas the MLG showed higher adjusted Sadness, F (1, 187) = 6.54, p FDR = 0.035, η p 2 = 0 . 034 . No other corrected group differences emerged.

Conclusion: Brief mindfulness meditation selectively shaped the profile of music-evoked aesthetic emotions in older adults, rather than producing uniform changes across emotional dimensions. These findings suggest that musical aesthetic experience is responsive to the listener's momentary psychological state and extend current understanding of mindfulness-related changes in aesthetic emotion to later life. They also provide a basis for further exploring mindful music listening as a means of enriching emotional engagement with music in older adults.