“We can confirm that bass really makes people dance more, even if they’re not aware of it,” said Dr Daniel Cameron, a neuroscientist at McMaster University in Canada. Previous studies have suggested that music that induces dance contains more low-frequency sound, and that low pitches help people move to the beat of the music.
The team tells the magazine ‘Current Biology’ how they organized an electronic music concert by Canadian DJ duo Orphx at their university. They asked attendees to wear headbands with motion sensors. The researchers turned on specialized VLF (low-frequency loudspeakers) loudspeakers every 2.5 minutes during the 55-minute performance. The results of 43 visitors who agreed to wear a headband showed that they moved on average 11.8% more when the VLF speakers were turned on. Cameron noted that this meant that people danced more vigorously, or with more exaggerated movements.
Next, the team conducted another experiment in which 17 people were asked to distinguish between a few clips from the concert and a few that had been edited at very low frequencies. The results showed that the participants could not indicate whether VLF was used. Cameron said this confirmed the conclusion that the concertgoers were not aware of any influence of the low frequencies. “So you don’t have to hear a bass to actually feel it.”