Happy and sad music acutely modulate different types of attention in older adults

Of the three subtypes of attention outlined by the attentional subsystems model, alerting (vigilance or arousal needed for task completion) and executive control (the ability to inhibit distracting information while completing a goal) are susceptible to age-related decline, while orienting remains relatively stable. Yet, few studies have investigated strategies that may acutely maintain or promote attention in typically aging older adults. Music listening may be one potential strategy for attentional maintenance as past research shows that listening to happy music characterized by a fast tempo and major mode increases cognitive task performance, likely by increasing cognitive arousal. The present study sought to investigate whether listening to happy music (fast tempo, major mode) impacts alerting, orienting, and executive control attention in 57 middle and older-aged adults (M = 61.09 years, SD = 7.16). Participants completed the Attention Network Test (ANT) before and after listening to music rated as happy or sad (slow tempo, minor mode), or no music (i.e., silence) for 10 min. Our results demonstrate that happy music increased alerting attention, particularly when relevant and irrelevant information conflicted within a trial. Contrary to what was predicted, sad music modulated executive control performance. Overall, our findings indicate that music written in the major mode with a fast tempo (happy) and minor mode with a slow tempo (sad) modulate different aspects of attention in the short-term.