Event-based Experience Sampling of Music Listening with the MuPsych app
Keywords: Experience sampling, Music and Emotions, Data collection
Abstract: In the age of the internet and smartphones, music listening has become a more portable, accessible, and personalised experience. As this personal style has unique potential for influencing the emotions and well-being of listeners, it is important to understand the complete range of variables involved. An innovative solution to this challenge comes from the mobile app MuPsych, which utilises the experience sampling method (ESM) to capture music listening experiences as they occur in everyday life. The app presents participants with a series of questions at the moment they start listening to music on their phone, allowing for real-time and ecologically valid data measurement of listening experiences. Data from these music reports are combined with individual variables, through a battery of psychological surveys presented within the app. To complement these sources of self-report data, the app can also collect track and artist data, physiological data from wearable devices, and weather data. The main purpose of research using the MuPsych app has been to develop a comprehensive model of how music influences emotional states, through a complex interaction of music, listener, and context variables. The app is also available to all music researchers, as a tool to investigate various phenomena related to the listening experience, through custom studies. In the future, the data collected by MuPsych will be used to develop a music recommender, which will create playlists based on listener mood, activity, and reason for listening, while supporting emotional health and well-being.
Submission Number: 65
Loading