The relative contributions of subjective and musical factors in music for sleep

Previous research into music for sleep has focused on describing the types of musical characteristics associated with such music. The current study aimed to increase understanding of sleep music by investigating subjective perceptions of listeners associated with music that is considered sleep inducing. A listening experiment asked participants to rate musical excerpts along subjective evaluation dimensions related to valence, arousal, and dissociation. Musical features of the stimuli presented were extracted to compare the relative contribution of subjective and objective aspects. Our results reveal important roles for valence and arousal, and highlight notions of comfort, liking, and dissociation that contribute to music that is perceived to be sleep inducing. The musical analysis largely conformed with previous research, with an emphasis on brightness. However, the subjective ratings overshadowed the musical features in predicting what music was perceived to be most sleep inducing. Our findings are relevant for music recommendation applications that rely on a features-based approach to selecting music to fulfil particular purposes. As applications increasingly emphasise personalisation, we have shown that an account of subjective appraisals is crucial to predict listeners’ experiences, providing recommendations for individually targeted therapeutic applications.