Alone in a Crowded Room: The Impact of Crowd Noise in Music Recordings on Social Facilitation, Mental Imagery, and Cognitive Processing

Abstract

This study investigates the role of crowd noise in the elicitation of social facilitation, mental imagery, arousal, and cognitive resource allocation. Participants (N = 60) listened to 8 total songs, 4 where artificial crowd noise was used to simulate a live recording and 4 that were the untouched studio recordings. Results indicate that crowd noise does not elicit greater enjoyment or mental imagery, but it does elicit greater allocation of cognitive resources and lower arousal over time, indicative of social facilitation. These results indicate that crowd noise is better defined as a content feature rather than a structural feature.