Abstract
Previous research has demonstrated that auditory rhythms affect both movement and physiological functions. We hypothesized that the ecological sounds of human breathing can affect breathing more than artificial sounds of breathing, varying in tones for inspiration and expiration. To address this question, we monitored the breath duration of participants exposed to three conditions: (a) ecological sounds of breathing, (b) artificial sounds of breathing having equal temporal features as the ecological sounds, (c) no sounds (control). We found that participants’ breath duration variability was reduced in the ecological sound condition, more than in the artificial sound condition. We suggest that ecological sounds captured the timing of breathing better than artificial sounds, guiding as a consequence participants’ breathing. We interpreted our results according to the Theory of Event Coding, providing further support to its validity, and suggesting its possible extension in the domain of physiological functions which are both consciously and unconsciously controlled.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Bernhard Hommel and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.
Ethical standards
The present study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Trieste in compliance with national legislation, the Ethical Code of the Italian Association of Psychology, and the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.
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Murgia, M., Santoro, I., Tamburini, G. et al. Ecological sounds affect breath duration more than artificial sounds. Psychological Research 80, 76–81 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-015-0647-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-015-0647-z