Repeated Listening Increases the Liking for Music Regardless of Its Complexity: Implications for the Appreciation and Aesthetics of Music.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Repeated-measures experimental study without a separate control group (graded by design analogy for non-clinical behavioral research).
PubMed 28408864 · doi:10.3389/fnins.2017.00147
What was done
Forty musical examples across four predefined complexity levels were presented to participants 28 times each over an approximately four-week experimental period. Individual ratings of liking were gathered throughout the study to test whether repeated exposure (familiarity) interacts with complexity, and whether appreciation follows a hypothesized inverted U-shaped curve.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical statistics or effect sizes. Liking ratings increased monotonically with repeated listening across all four levels of complexity, with no evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship. General familiarity with similar musical styles served as the strongest predictor of liking, even for previously unheard musical excerpts.
Why it matters
These findings challenge the longstanding inverted-U aesthetic hypothesis (the Wundt/Berlyne curve), suggesting that mere exposure and stylistic familiarity consistently increase musical preference regardless of structural complexity.
Limits
The abstract does not disclose participant sample size, demographics, participant musical training, or exact statistical metrics (such as effect sizes or confidence intervals). The naturalistic listening protocol did not include an unexposed control group, and outcomes beyond subjective liking were not reported.
Cited by
- contradicts Aesthetic preference and liking for stimuli such as music follow an inverted-U curve relative to exposure, increasing with familiarity before declining when exposure becomes excessive.