Dj Music Effect

[Gwenda Gronert]

WhenI updated Audacity to version 3.5.1, I encountered errors with the Openvino plugin. After finding help on this forum, I installed the new version of Openvino. While this resolved issues with my other effects, I now face

an error when applying the Music Separation effect to an audio track.

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Aim: This paper reports a study to test the hypothesis that day surgery patients who listen to music during their preoperative wait will have statistically significantly lower levels of anxiety than patients who receive routine care.

Results: Music statistically significantly reduced the state anxiety level of the music (intervention) group. No relationships were found between socio-demographic or clinical variables such as gender or type of surgery.

Music listening has been suggested to beneficially impact health via stress-reducing effects. However, the existing literature presents itself with a limited number of investigations and with discrepancies in reported findings that may result from methodological shortcomings (e.g. small sample size, no valid stressor). It was the aim of the current study to address this gap in knowledge and overcome previous shortcomings by thoroughly examining music effects across endocrine, autonomic, cognitive, and emotional domains of the human stress response.

The three conditions significantly differed regarding cortisol response (p = 0.025) to the stressor, with highest concentrations in the RM and lowest in the SW condition. After the stressor, sAA (p=0.026) baseline values were reached considerably faster in the RM group than in the R group. HR and psychological measures did not significantly differ between groups.

Our findings indicate that music listening impacted the psychobiological stress system. Listening to music prior to a standardized stressor predominantly affected the autonomic nervous system (in terms of a faster recovery), and to a lesser degree the endocrine and psychological stress response. These findings may help better understanding the beneficial effects of music on the human body.

Copyright: 2013 Thoma et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

In sum, it appears that listening to music has the inherent ability to decrease the psychobiological stress response. However, due to the fact that the existing literature is not complete and often appears as inconsistent, definitive conclusions about the beneficial stress-reducing effect of music may be too premature. In light of these considerations, we set out to examine the effect of listening to music prior to a standardized stressor across neuroendocrine, autonomic, cognitive, and emotional domains of the human stress response in healthy participants in a laboratory setting. We put a special emphasis on the control of known influencing factors of the stress response and music effects, i.e. depression, anxiety, chronic stress, and emotion regulation traits. To the best of our knowledge, such an endeavor has not been attempted thus far. We hypothesized that those participants who listened to relaxing music prior to the stress task would show a different stress responses in terms of cortisol, salivary alpha-amylase, heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, subjective perception of stress, and anxiety when compared to non-music control groups, i.e. an acoustic control condition (sound of rippling water) and a control condition resting without acoustic stimulation.

In advance of the appointment, participants were sent a set of information and several questionnaires (see below). In the advance material, participants were informed about the course of the study, but were not given detailed information about the experimental stress paradigm. Study language was (Swiss) German. Participants were instructed not to drink alcohol or caffeinated beverages 48 hours prior to the study. Additionally, they were told to refrain from any exercise activities 24 hours prior to the experiment. Further, participants were asked to refrain from brushing their teeth or eating at least 60 minutes before the study. For their participation in the study, the participants were reimbursed with 50 Swiss Francs.

An a priori power analysis was conducted to estimate the optimal sample size to answer the main hypothesis of a decreased cortisol response in the music group when compared to the control groups. It indicated that 54 participants were required to reach an 87% power for detecting an effect of 0.15 when employing an alpha criterion of 0.05 of statistical significance.

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The study protocol was approved by the ethics committees of the University of Zurich and of the Canton of Zrich. Oral and written informed consent from all subjects was obtained.

The experiment used a between subject design to compare the effect of acoustic stimulation (independent variable) on cortisol, sAA, HR, RSA, mood, and anxiety (dependent variables). There were three conditions prior to a stress test (Trier Social Stress Test, TSST, see description below): a music condition (relaxing music listening prior to stress test, RM), a water sound condition (an acoustic control condition including listening to sound of rippling water, SW) and a control condition (non-acoustic control condition including resting without acoustic stimulation, R). Seventy-eight participants fulfilled all study requirements and were randomly assigned to one of the groups. Eighteen participants were not able to keep their appointment (see Figure 1). Randomization was accomplished through the use of a computer generated randomization list.

All participants underwent a standardized psychosocial laboratory stress protocol. The TSST consists of an introduction (Intro) that lasts 2 minutes in which participants are introduced to the procedure of the TSST. Specifically, they are told that the TSST consists of a public speaking task followed by a mental arithmetic task in front of an audience. In the public speaking task (lasting 5 minutes), participants are asked to apply for a job. In this simulated job interview, they are asked to talk about their personal qualifications for the chosen job, e.g. why they are a better fit for the job than other applicants. Right after the job interview, participants are explained the nature of the mental arithmetic task, which lasts for another 5 minutes. The participants have to calculate backwards in steps of 17 from the number 2043. After each calculation error the participants are asked to re-start calculating from 2043. The TSST has repeatedly been found to be a reliable tool to activate both the HPA axis and the autonomous nervous system (ANS) [51]. In the current study, the standard TSST procedure as reported in the literature was slightly modified: in the Intro, the subjects were not told about the exact nature of the upcoming speaking task (i.e. giving a speech as part of a simulated job interview) in order to prevent subjects from mentally preparing for the task.

For the current study, all examinations were conducted between 1200 and 1700h to minimize the confounding effect of the hormonal diurnal rhythm. Circadian fluctuations of hormone levels are particularly pronounced in the morning hours and flatten throughout the day [52,53]. Participants arrived at the laboratory 60 min prior to the onset of the stress induction by the TSST (Figure 2). Participants were then escorted to a non-intervention room, where they spent their waiting time between the actual experimental interventions. Immediately after arrival, participants were informed by the main experimenter about the course of the experiment. Oral and written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Right afterwards, the LifeShirt, an electrophysiological measurement device (see below), was attached. After an adaptation period of 30 min, a basal saliva sample (T1, -30 min) was taken. Twenty minutes prior to the TSST, the participants were brought to the TSST room, where they were introduced by the main experimenter to the procedure of the TSST (= introduction: Intro, 2 min). The subjects were then brought to the intervention room, seated in a comfortable chair, and provided with headphones. All participants had to adjust a test signal (sinus tone, sound pressure = -70dB) to the individual hearing threshold level for the calibration of the volume. After this, the participants were to undergo their assigned condition, i.e. RM, SW, or R for ten minutes. No instruction was given for any of the conditions. Immediately after this part a second saliva sample was taken (T2, -5 min). Following this, subjects were taken back into the TSST room where they were undergoing the TSST. After the completion of the TSST, the subjects were then returned back the non-intervention room and a third saliva sample was taken (T3, + 10 min). Further samples were taken 15 min (T4, + 25 min), 30 min (T5, + 40 min), 45 min (T6, + 55 min), and 60 min (T7, + 70 min) after the TSST. In addition, the subjects completed various self-report stress measures (see below) at T1, before and after T2, at T3 and T4.

We included a non-music acoustic control condition, i.e. listening to sound of rippling water, in our study. This control condition has been chosen to control for effects on psychological and physiological parameters, which might be caused by mere acoustic stimulation alone. The sound of rippling water is missing the typical characteristics of music, such as a structured melody and rhythm. Still, it is an acoustic stimulus with a certain perceptual quality for the listener. What is more, in comparison to artificially produced sounds (such as white or pink noise or single tones), the sound of rippling water may be presented for longer periods of time without exerting stress or boredom in the listener [50].

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