Music, cognition, emotions and mood...

Hmm, i've been interested in how music effects everyone's moods for a long time. A few hours ago, i decided to start looking up on the topic. I intend to work out some essay on it and then perhaps i'll post it somewhere. I hope it does go too long though.

Preliminary findings:
After doing some light browsing through EBSCO database, i found some journals related to this topic. It seems that music has been found to have some surprising effects on performance and also the mood of an individual. In a journal, researchers found that listening to music of our preference can lead to better performance, as in making efforful processes into automatic processes. This finding is interesting, though it needs further investigation into the practicality of it. This is because there are some people who cannot work with music because it serves as too much of a distraction (e.g. RM who will go crooning on any oldie song that she hears :P).

Another interesting find is that there has been research on this topic done in Japan! This makes things a little easier when investigating on cultural factors and trying to be able to get generalizable results. However, the most exciting part of this matter is that implications can be used to distinguish between the culture of the West and the East. Japan, which probably has one of the most fillial cultures in the world has been influenced by popular music from the US. The researchers also claim that music could be a sort of universal language. I hope to look up on this possibility as well.

Doulos! Where are you! I want to see those working memory journals! XD