ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 02 December 2014 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01361 Tempo and walking speed with music in the urban context Marek Fran ˇ ek 1 *, Leon van Noorden 2 and Lukáš Režný 1 1 Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Králové, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic 2 Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music, Department of Musicology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Edited by: Guy Madison, Umeå University, Sweden Reviewed by: Minna Huotilainen, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Finland Luiz Naveda, State University of Minas Gerais, Brazil Ana Luísa Pinho, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden *Correspondence: Marek Fran ˇ ek, Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Králové, Rokitanského 62, Hradec Králové CZ 500 03, Czech Republic e-mail: marek.franek@uhk.cz The study explored the effect of music on the temporal aspects of walking behavior in a real outdoor urban setting. First, spontaneous synchronization between the beat of the music and step tempo was explored. The effect of motivational and non-motivational music (Karageorghis et al., 1999) on the walking speed was also studied. Finally, we investigated whether music can mask the effects of visual aspects of the walking route environment, which involve fluctuation of walking speed as a response to particular environmental settings. In two experiments, we asked participants to walk around an urban route that was 1.8 km in length through various environments in the downtown area of Hradec Králové. In Experiment 1, the participants listened to a musical track consisting of world pop music with a clear beat. In Experiment 2, participants were walking either with motivational music, which had a fast tempo and a strong rhythm, or with non-motivational music, which was slower, nice music, but with no strong implication to movement. Musical beat, as well as the sonic character of the music listened to while walking, influenced walking speed but did not lead to precise synchronization. It was found that many subjects did not spontaneously synchronize with the beat of the music at all, and some subjects synchronized only part of the time. The fast, energetic music increases the speed of the walking tempo, while slower, relaxing music makes the walking tempo slower. Further, it was found that listening to music with headphones while walking can mask the influence of the surrounding environment to some extent. Both motivational music and non-motivational music had a larger effect than the world pop music from Experiment 1. Individual differences in responsesto the music listened to while walking that were linked to extraversion and neuroticism were also observed. The findings described here could be useful in rhythmic stimulation for enhancing or recovering the features of movement performance. Keywords: walking speed, walking with music, spontaneous synchronization, motivational music, urban walk, auditory bubble, personality INTRODUCTION Recent studies using the experience sampling method docu- mented a variety of environments in which people tend to lis- ten to music. North et al. (2004) reported that roughly half of participants’ musical experiences occurred within the home. Listening to music while driving has also become very com- mon. Approximately 18% of musical listening occurred in public spaces, such as restaurants and malls, and on public trans- port. Finally, approximately 1% of musical listening occurred in the gym/while exercising. The variety of locations where peo- ple engaged with music was also documented by Juslin et al. (2008), who showed a roughly similar distribution of musical lis- tening as in the previous study and in the study by Greasley and Lamont (2011). Although the mentioned investigations did not capture their participants listening to music while walking out- side, it is known that some people listen to music while walking (Hoffer, 2014). Although there is a body of research on listen- ing to music while driving (e.g., Brodsky, 2001; Wiesenthal et al., 2003; Bull, 2004; Dibben and Williamson, 2007) or on pub- lic transport (e.g., Bull, 2001; Simun, 2009; Lyons et al., 2012), only the study by Heye and Lamont (2010) systematically inves- tigated some aspect of the effects of music while walking. The authors were interested in the functions of music listening, emo- tions elicited by music listening, and awareness of the music and the surroundings. Enjoyment, reducing boredom, creation of emotions, and masking disturbing noises were most common functions of music listening while traveling. These authors also documented that music is often used to create an “auditory bub- ble” (Bull, 2005), which changes one’s perception of the outside environment. People listen to music while traveling in public transport to isolate themselves from other people (Bull, 2001); in this way, they transform urban journeys into private and plea- surable spaces (Simun, 2009). It seems that music listening while walking can have a similar function in some respect, transforming the perception of places as people pass through them. At present, little is known about the temporal aspect of walk- ing while listening to music. Although few investigations have examined walking while listening to music (e.g., Styns et al., 2007; Leman et al., 2013), there is a relatively large body of research examining the effects of music in various sport activities, www.frontiersin.org December 2014 | Volume 5 | Article 1361 | 1