2021/09/15 by Jaidev Shriram, Shriram, Jaidev, Sreeharsha Paruchuri +3
Arts and Humanities · Neuroscience · Psychology · #Computation and Language (cs.CL) #Diverse Music Education Insights #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Music Therapy and Health #Neuroscience and Music Perception
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2109.07227
openalex publication_date 2021/09/15 · openalex created_date 2022/10/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Music affects and in some cases reflects one's emotional state. Key to this\ninfluence is lyrics and their meaning in conjunction with the acoustic\nproperties of the track. Recent work has focused on analysing these acoustic\nproperties and showing that individuals prone to depression primarily consume\nlow valence and low energy music. However, no studies yet have explored lyrical\ncontent preferences in relation to online music consumption of such\nindividuals. In the current study, we examine lyrical simplicity, measured as\nthe Compressibility and Absolute Information Content of the text, associated\nwith preferences of individuals at risk for depression. Using the six-month\nlistening history of 541 Last.fm users, we compare lyrical simplicity trends\nfor users grouped as being at risk (At-Risk) of depression from those that are\nnot (No-Risk). Our findings reveal that At-Risk individuals prefer songs with\ngreater information content (lower Compressibility) on average, especially for\nsongs characterised as Sad. Furthermore, we found that At-Risk individuals also\nhave greater variability of Absolute Information Content across their listening\nhistory. We discuss the results in light of existing socio-psychological\nlab-based research on music habits associated with depression and their\nrelevance to naturally occurring online music listening behaviour.\n