AI Insight
This study investigated whether brief mindfulness meditation affects emotional responses to music in 191 community-dwelling older adults. Participants who practiced brief mindfulness before listening to music reported significantly higher feelings of transcendence and peacefulness compared to those who only listened to music, while the music-only group experienced more sadness. The findings demonstrate that mindfulness meditation selectively enhances positive aesthetic emotions during music listening in older adults rather than uniformly changing all emotional responses.
Why it matters
This research suggests that combining mindfulness practices with music listening could be a practical intervention to enhance emotional well-being in older adults. The selective enhancement of positive emotional experiences like transcendence and peacefulness, without diminishing the full range of aesthetic responses, indicates potential applications in community programs and therapeutic settings for aging populations.
Understand the Science
BackgroundBrief 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.MethodsA 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.ResultsManipulation 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 ps < 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, pFDR < 0.001, ηp2=0.104, and Peacefulness, F(1, 187) = 6.47, pFDR = 0.035, ηp2=0.033, whereas the MLG showed higher adjusted Sadness, F(1, 187) = 6.54, pFDR = 0.035, ηp2=0.034. No other corrected group differences emerged.ConclusionBrief 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.