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Updated: Dec 18, 2025

Driving Under the Influence: How Music Listening Affects Driving Behaviors
Published on: March 27, 2019
Neural and physiological data from participants listening to affective music
Ian Daly1, Nicoletta Nicolaou2,3, Duncan Williams4
1Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neural Engineering Laboratory, School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK. i.daly@essex.ac.uk.
Abstract:
Music provides a means of communicating affective meaning. However, the neurological mechanisms by which music induces affect are not fully understood. Our project sought to investigate this through a series of experiments into how humans react to affective musical stimuli and how physiological and neurological signals recorded from those participants change in accordance with self-reported changes in affect. In this paper, the datasets recorded over the course of this project are presented, including details of the musical stimuli, participant reports of their felt changes in affective states as they listened to the music, and concomitant recordings of physiological and neurological activity. We also include non-identifying meta data on our participant populations for purposes of further exploratory analysis. This data provides a large and valuable novel resource for researchers investigating emotion, music, and how they affect our neural and physiological activity.
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