Metal music does not inspire violence but joy. Fans of the genre probably didn't need any confirmation from science but a new study conducted in Australia revealed that despite the lyrics, metal songs neither arouse nor instigate violence compared to listening to other songs.
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Metal music does not inspire violence but joy. Fans of the genre probably didn't need any confirmation from science but a new study conducted in Australia has revealed that despite the lyrics, metal songs neither arouse nor instigate violence compared to listening to other songs.
This is the conclusion of the Macquarie University Music Lab, which used the song Eaten, by the death metal band Bloodbath, during a psychological test.
Although the song talks about cannibalism, neither the song nor others with similar lyrics provoke violence according to the researchers. Fans of the death metal genre are not "desensitized" by violent images. Indeed, it is exactly the opposite.
How do scientists test people's sensitivity to violence? With a classic psychological experiment that probes people's unconscious responses.
The study is part of a decades-long investigation by Thompson and colleagues into the emotional effects of music. The test involved 32 fans of metal music and 48 people not passionate about the genre.
Both groups were simultaneously shown both violent (scenes of people being attacked in the street) and neutral (people walking) images, one for each eye. Meanwhile, attendees were played with both Pharrell's Happy and Eaten. At that point they had to indicate which image they perceived as violent by pressing two keys.
Principal investigator Yanan Sun explained that the goal of the experiment was to measure how much the participants' brains noticed violent scenes and to compare how their sensitivity was affected by the music they heard. And here's the result?
“We found that both fans and non-fans of metal music showed a general bias of negativity for violent images versus neutral images, regardless of musical genres. For non-fans, this bias was stronger by listening to music that expressed violence than by listening to music that expressed happiness. For violent music fans, the prejudice was the same both listening to music that expressed violence and happiness " it is read in the studio.
According to scientists this is the result of the so-called "binocular rivalry". Underlying the psychological test is the fact that when people are presented with a neutral image in one eye and a violent image in the other, they focus more on the violent one.
“Most death metal fans are intelligent and caring people who only have a passion for music. It's the equivalent of fans of horror movies or battle reenactments, ”Thompson said.
The study confirms findings from other research that death metal music fans experience joy and peace as they listen to it.
The results were published in the journal Open Science of the Royal Society.
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Francesca Mancuso
