Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MUSICONNECT (Music as youth empowerment: creating connection to self and others)
Reporting period: 2022-08-01 to 2025-01-31
Can music solve global challenges, lead to improved connection and empowerment, foster an inclusive society? MUSICONNECT project introduces music engagement as a ubiquitous daily resource to advance a critical capacity in a modern world: youth ability to connect with self and others. The challenge of assessing music as a human resource is that it functions at emotional, bodily, and situated levels of experience that are difficult to objectively measure. However, such aspects are integral to state-of-the-art conceptions of human cognition and, further, advancements in empirical research now enable their quantitative assessment.
In MUSICONNECT, we conduct groundbreaking research to address the emotional-bodily-situated nature of music, to conceptualize and objectively measure how, when, and for whom music engagement functions as empowerment.
Three dialogical work packages address music as 1) emotional self-regulation 2) embodied interaction and 3) situated engagement. Young people (N = 5000, aged 15-25) with diverse backgrounds participate in studies ranging from surveys to experiments. We implement and develop cutting-edge methods to quantify the “unmeasurable” of music: ecologically valid experience sampling of real-time listening experiences, physiological measures, computational music feature analyses, optical motion capture, deep learning techniques, digital ethnography, and psychometric assessment. Results will renew the scientific capacity to address music engagement as testable, falsifiable, and evidence-based practice.
Breakthrough knowledge will be created on the mechanisms of action through which
music functions as empowerment and how the effectiveness of this is determined by the interplay of musical, individual, situational, and cultural factors. Findings can advise educational, preventive, or social programs that aim to support youth in building their self-regulatory competence and social connections in today’s world.
In MUSICONNECT, we conduct groundbreaking research to address the emotional-bodily-situated nature of music, to conceptualize and objectively measure how, when, and for whom music engagement functions as empowerment.
Three dialogical work packages address music as 1) emotional self-regulation 2) embodied interaction and 3) situated engagement. Young people (N = 5000, aged 15-25) with diverse backgrounds participate in studies ranging from surveys to experiments. We implement and develop cutting-edge methods to quantify the “unmeasurable” of music: ecologically valid experience sampling of real-time listening experiences, physiological measures, computational music feature analyses, optical motion capture, deep learning techniques, digital ethnography, and psychometric assessment. Results will renew the scientific capacity to address music engagement as testable, falsifiable, and evidence-based practice.
Breakthrough knowledge will be created on the mechanisms of action through which
music functions as empowerment and how the effectiveness of this is determined by the interplay of musical, individual, situational, and cultural factors. Findings can advise educational, preventive, or social programs that aim to support youth in building their self-regulatory competence and social connections in today’s world.
The research plan of the project has been implemented as planned with minor changes and with new openings emerging. Study designs have been finalized and ethics approvals have been acquired for the experience sampling studies and music feature analyses, for the physiological experiment, for the joint action and dance study, and for the digital ethnography study, as described in the research plan. Data collection for the ethnography study has been completed, and the physiological experiment and the joint-action study have been pre-registered, and their data collection has been started.
Intermediate goals on methodological development have been completed. The MuPsych application for mobile experience sampling studies and musical feature analyses has been implemented to iOS platform and the feasibility and accuracy of the markerless motion capture technology for movement data collection has been tested and validated.
New collaborations within the team and with external collaborators have been started. Conceptual models have been developed on healthy musical identities, music in romantic relationships, and music as emotional episodes and new data has been collected for instance about youth music engagement in comparison to sports engagement. Results have been published about the helpful and unhelpful aspects of music for anxiety regulation, impacts of music on adolescents’ mood in school context, the role of lyrics in unhealthy music listening, dyadic kinematic coupling in dance entrainment, full-body rhythmic synchronization in childhood, the role of music videos for the emotional outcomes of music
listening, and music’s relatedness to youth self-efficacy.
Intermediate goals on methodological development have been completed. The MuPsych application for mobile experience sampling studies and musical feature analyses has been implemented to iOS platform and the feasibility and accuracy of the markerless motion capture technology for movement data collection has been tested and validated.
New collaborations within the team and with external collaborators have been started. Conceptual models have been developed on healthy musical identities, music in romantic relationships, and music as emotional episodes and new data has been collected for instance about youth music engagement in comparison to sports engagement. Results have been published about the helpful and unhelpful aspects of music for anxiety regulation, impacts of music on adolescents’ mood in school context, the role of lyrics in unhealthy music listening, dyadic kinematic coupling in dance entrainment, full-body rhythmic synchronization in childhood, the role of music videos for the emotional outcomes of music
listening, and music’s relatedness to youth self-efficacy.
Firstly, innovative methodologies in motion capture and interpersonal coordination analysis have been developed. We have tested and validated the appropriateness of markerless motion capture as a data collection method studying movement in music and dance and we also have proposed new ways of analysing the data for interpersonal coordination of movement.
Second, new conceptual models have been developed addressing major areas of youth psychosocial development including a) the social aspects of healthy musical identities and b) the social functions of music across the different stages of romantic relationships. Finally, new knowledge has been created on the helpful and unhelpful aspects of everyday music listening in terms of managing depression and anxiety (including lyrical themes, regulatory strategies, capacity for personal control, and severity of the mental health condition), providing insights on music engagement for youth mental health.
All these findings have been published in scientific journals, disseminated in several conferences and forums for practitioners, and directly implemented in our university teaching.
Second, new conceptual models have been developed addressing major areas of youth psychosocial development including a) the social aspects of healthy musical identities and b) the social functions of music across the different stages of romantic relationships. Finally, new knowledge has been created on the helpful and unhelpful aspects of everyday music listening in terms of managing depression and anxiety (including lyrical themes, regulatory strategies, capacity for personal control, and severity of the mental health condition), providing insights on music engagement for youth mental health.
All these findings have been published in scientific journals, disseminated in several conferences and forums for practitioners, and directly implemented in our university teaching.