A preliminary investigation into the effects of a brief mindfulness induction on perceptions of attention, aesthetic response, and flow during music listening

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a brief mindfulness induction technique on subjective reports of attention, aesthetic response, and flow during music listening as measured by Continuous Response Digital Interface (CRDI) and questionnaire. Additionally, differences between aesthetic response and flow were explored in the context of verbal and CRDI responses. Participants were undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in music classes or ensembles at the College of Music at Florida State University (N=132), and were randomly assigned to one of four groups: mindfulness induction paired with aesthetic response (n=34), mindfulness induction paired with flow response (n=35), aesthetic response (n=32), and flow response (n=31). For all groups, a questionnaire was used to gather data on self-reported measures of attention, and all participants were asked to manipulate a CRDI which registered either their aesthetic or flow response to a 10½ minute audio excerpt of Giacomo Puccini's opera, La Bohème. In groups in which a mindfulness induction was used, participants were asked to listen to a previously recorded fifteen minute guided mindfulness audio presentation and report on their experiences. Responses to Likert-type questionnaire items suggest that participants experienced a subjective “heightening” of attention during music listening compared to baseline in all conditions, with no specific modification attributable to the mindfulness task. A majority of respondents in the mindfulness groups, however, reported that the task had modified their listening experience by increasing their ability to focus on the music without distraction. Composite CRDI graphs suggest unique response patterns between groups based on both the presence of a mindfulness task as well as the construct for focus of attention (flow or aesthetic response). In general, composite graphs for flow indicated less decrease in response magnitude between the end of peak responses compared with aesthetic response, and longer and higher magnitude plateau responses. For aesthetic response groups, mindfulness increased the overall magnitude of peak responses, and decreased the depth of valley responses. In flow response groups, mindfulness attenuated both peaks and valleys and increased plateaus. Additionally, verbal accounts imply phenomenological differences between flow and aesthetic responses, with each accounting for a unique type of heightened and positively valenced psychological experience.