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RUNNING HEAD: Heart Rate and Music Genres ---- Owens, Lindsey, McCrady

TESTING THE TACTICS: THE EFFECT OF MUSIC GENRES ON HEART RATE


Riliegh Owens, Halle Lindsey, Georgia McCrady
Life Science Academy, Owensboro Community and Technical College, Owensboro KY, 42301

ABSTRACT
Heart rates increase and decrease very easily, and very quickly. High heart rate is the second
known cause for overworked heart muscles and issues with contractions in the heart. Everyday,
kids listen to music throughout the day from all different genres. We devised an experiment to
determine if different music genres increase and decrease heart rate on an average daily basis.
Our results conducted evidence of increased heart rate from your favorite song and pop genres,
and decreased heart rate from calm genres of music. Some difficulties were first resolved before
fully conducting the experiment.

KEY WORDS: heart rate, genres, increase, decrease, sensors, Logger Pro

INTRODUCTION
According to MedicineNet The number of heartbeats per unit of time, usually per
minute. The heart rate is based on the number of contractions of the ventricles (the lower
chambers of the heart). The heart rate may be too fast (tachycardia) or too slow (bradycardia)
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(1996-2016). Heart rate is measured in BPM or beats per minute. BPM is how many times the
heart beats in a minute time interval. You can determine how many times your heart beats per
minute by counting the beats you feel while holding your pulse in your neck or wrist.
Millions of people are affected with high heart rates throughout the US. This puts unneeded
stress on the cardiovascular system and heart that lead to heart failure, heart disease, and loss of
function in muscles of the heart, (American Heart Association, 2015).
Kids everywhere listen to different music on a daily basis, with no thought of the pace of
your heart rate that follows. Different genres of music have different effects on the brain and the
heart. According to The Effects of Music on Heart Rate and Blood Pressure, If upbeat music
produces a psychological response that stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, then we
hypothesize that the mental and physical connection in the body will cause upbeat music to
increase our heart rate and blood pressure, and calm music will decrease our heart rate and blood
pressure. (Sakamoto, 2002). We took this into consideration as we did a little research before we
conducted our experiment. We thought of our daily lives as we listened to music and realized that
we can feel our heart beat faster as our favorite song comes on, and decrease when slow music
comes on. We hypothesized that our favorite song and the genre of pop music will increase our
heart rate and calm music will decrease our heart rate.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The materials used in this lab included a computer with Vernier Logger Pro software, Vernier
LabQuest Mini with accompanying USB cable, audio playing device, headphones, and a
Vernier heart rate nun chucks. We tested 10 people including ourselves and first tested their
resting heart rate, then their heart rate after their favorite song, pop song (which was kept
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constant through the experiment), and a calm song (which was kept constant throughout the
experiment). Then we recorded the results in an organized table in Excel.
We got one participant at a time. We sat them down and put the heart rate nun chucks in
their hands and positioned them in a resting position. We then tested their resting heart rate for 30
seconds. Next, we asked them their favorite song. We then put earbuds in their ears and played
their favorite song for 30 secs while they were holding onto the nun chucks. Next we tested them
with the pop song which was the same song for everybody throughout the experiment. We did
this for 30 sec while they were also holding onto the nun chucks. Lastly, we tested them with the
calm song for 30 sec. After this, we moved on and did the same for nine more participants as
data was recorded along the way.
RESULTS
The resting heart rate readings of participants 1 through 10 were similar and within the
normal range of 60-100 bpm (Table 1). In test one where we tested the heart rates after listening
to their favorite songs, almost all results followed our hypothesis and the heart rates went up. For
example Lyndseys resting heart rate was 76 bpm and went up to 94 after she listened to her
favorite song.. Dr. Mountjoys was 69 bpm and went up to 77. The only outlier in this test is Dr.
Wilkersons results which were 94 bpm resting and went to 88 bpm after listening to his favorite
song. Next was the calm genre, and the heart rates accordingly fell from listening to their favorite
song, to listening to calm music. For example, Maya had a heart rate of 94 after listening to her
favorite song, then her heart rate fell to 91 bpm after the calm music. Lastly, was the pop
category. All results followed our hypothesis. For example Halles heart rate after the calm music
was 105 bpm and went up to 122 bpm. Cades heart rate was 85 bpm after the calm music and it
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went to 87 bpm. Some peoples heart rates had larger impacts on a greater scale (Table1).
Overall, there were outliers but our experiment proved our hypothesis.
DISCUSSION
The overall change in participants heart rates followed a trending change in which
approved our hypothesis. As the heart rates went up from resting to the favorite songs, they went
down after the calm song, and right back up after pop genre. Some people had heart rates that
went up drastically, while other went up 2-5 bpms. Heart rates differ in everybody. According to
Livestrong.com, Peoples heart rates change based on many factors. Athletes heart rates
increase and decrease in at a slower rate than others due to the work the heart has gone through
to build up the muscular structure of the heart's muscle, (Young, 2014). Things such as diet,
exercise, and health also play a role on how fast or slow your heart rate is.
Although some readings did support our hypothesis, there is still enough information to
conduct that our hypothesis was correct. All of our results followed the hypothesis and our
mistakes or outliers couldve been from multiple things. The technology couldve messed up,
inaccurate results, signal interferences, and outside variable could have interacted with our
outlier results.
Overall our experiment was a success and music does affect our heart rates on a daily
basis.

LITERATURE CITED
American Heart Association. 2015. What is cardiovascular disease? www.heart.org. Date
accessed 03/13/16.
MedicineNet. 2012. Definition of Heart Rate. www.medicinenet.com. Date accessed 03/13/16.
Sakamoto, H. 2002. The Effects of Music on Heart Rate and Blood Pressure.
www.spot.colorado.edu. Date accessed 03/13/16.
Young, S. 2014. Factors That Affect Heart Rate. www.livestrong.com. Date accessed 03/14/16.

Table 1. Maximum BPM of Participants.

Figure 1. Heart Rate After Different Types of Music

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