Understanding Why People Enjoy Loud Sound

Abstract

Sounds at levels that can injure the ear are regarded as enjoyable by many people. In many societies, a common form of this behavior is listening to loud music, either via personal audio systems or at music venues. Drawing on theory from the literature around loud sound and emotional responses to music, and combining it with concepts of physiological sound adaptation and classical conditioning, we developed a model of the process that may underlie people's enjoyment of loud sound, particularly loud music in nightclubs. The Conditioning, Adaptation, and Acculturation to Loud Music (CAALM) model proposes that the benefits associated with loud sound, alongside other desirable aspects of nightclubs, provide the unconditioned stimuli. Over time regular clubbers become conditioned to enjoy loud sound in itself. Exposure to loud sound also causes adaptation within the auditory system, so there is both a desire for, and tolerance of, loud sound during leisure time. This sets up an expectation of loud music as a cultural norm, and staff of leisure venues, who are themselves part of that culture, set music levels to meet customer expectations; and a cycle is perpetuated. This theory may be a useful consideration for health promotion and hearing conservation interventions.

Learning Outcomes: As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to describe a theory of why people like loud sound.

Many people seem to seek out dangerously high-level sound for pleasure during their leisure time. Fitness centers, ¹ sports events, ² personal audio systems, ³ live music events, ⁴ bars, ² and nightclubs ⁵ have all been shown to have potentially damaging levels of sound. Why people would like loudness is often touched upon in research but rarely explicitly investigated, and it is likely to depend on an interplay of factors. From a health perspective, influencing people to avoid damaging their auditory systems is important, yet people are resistant to this unless very young. ⁶ In this article, our aim is to present a model that explains why people enjoy loud sound, in particular loud music in nightclubs.

Mechanisms for Enjoyment of Music

Much of the high-level sound exposure during leisure time in Western societies involves music, and some of the theory about why music produces emotional responses may be relevant to the question of why people enjoy loudness. It has been suggested that music can cause an emotional response via seven more general mechanisms and their interactions ⁷ :

1. Brainstem reflexes: the brainstem responds to an acoustic feature of music as an urgent signal that is important for survival (e.g., sudden or dissonant sounds could induce arousal).

2. Evaluative conditioning: repeated pairing of a piece of music with a pleasurable state (e.g., the happiness of a fun night out) will lead to the music inducing happiness via conditioning processes.

3. Emotional contagion: the emotion apparent in the music influences a listener to feel the same emotions (e.g., listeners report fast, loud higher-pitches music as happy music).

4. Visual imagery: a person may perceive internal images (e.g., a landscape) as a result of hearing a piece of music.

5. Episodic memory: a particular piece of music is associated with a particular episode in one's life.

6. Musical expectancy: a listener's expectations are met or broken given the context of the piece/type of music and musical conventions.

7. Cognitive appraisal: the quality of the music as played is directly appraised.

Some of these mechanisms might be expected to influence the response to loudness of sound whether or not it is music. For example, the brainstem reflexes may cause physiological arousal in response to sudden stimuli of any kind. Similarly, if loud sound is repeatedly paired with other pleasurable activity, conditioning will occur so that loud sound becomes reinforcing in its own right. Other mechanisms interact with loudness in music to intensify a person's response. For example, emotionally charged music, when played louder, may result in a heightened emotional response. Imagery may become more vivid if music is played loudly. Episodic memory of events when music was loud may color the perception of loud music, and the expectation that music of certain types is loud could relate to those same memories. Even the cognitive appraisal of music may be influenced by how loud it is if a listener feels that loudness is an important factor.

In the Conditioning, Adaptation, and Acculturation to Loud Music (CAALM) model, we propose that the enjoyment of loud sound depends on a complex interaction of forces ( Fig. 1 ). Loud sound produces beneficial changes in both the external environment and a person's internal physiology and psychology. Through classical conditioning, the listener becomes conditioned to the loudness itself, which will therefore be pleasurable, and a conditioned person will begin to desire loud sounds. This process would also depend on the individual's predisposition, being more likely in those high in personality traits such as extraversion and sensation seeking and less likely in those with introverted personalities. At the same time, the auditory system's natural response to loud sound is to adapt to it, reducing discomfort in listeners. Once a desire for loud sound is conditioned and coupled with tolerance for it, the person will tend to seek or create loud environments. Knowing this, managers of entertainment venues tend to present music at high levels alongside the other enjoyable aspects of their businesses, aspects that tend to add to the conditioning of the loudness by reinforcing the association between loud music and appealing stimuli. Furthermore, because the auditory system adapts, making the high-level sounds seem less loud, people tend to seek or create yet louder sound.

Figure 1.

Process diagram for the Conditioning, Adaptation, and Acculturation to Loud Music model of enjoyment of loud music. Early exposure to loud sound causes simultaneous discomfort and benefits. Discomfort is associated with adaptation in the auditory system and tolerance for the loudness. On the other hand, people also perceive benefits of loud sound. The central box represents the benefits divided into external environmental factors and internal physiological/psychological factors. The process of conditioning operates between these and other reinforcing influences. Conditioning of the experience of loud sound by the unconditioned stimuli generates a desire for loud sound, dependent on personality, and with many people thus conditioned, a culture of loud music is formed. Leisure venues, as part of that culture, respond by increasing sound levels, which they combine with other features that people find glamorous and reinforcing and that contribute to the conditioning.

Damage and Adaptation Caused by High-Level Sound

To understand the CAALM model, it is important to consider the auditory system and how it responds to high-level sound. High-level sound has the potential to impact hearing health, no matter whether the sound is wanted or not. The human auditory system encodes sound energy via sensory hair cells in the cochlea. ⁸ About one-quarter are the inner hair cells, which are the primary sensory cells, and synapse with the auditory nerve fibers. The other three-quarters are outer hair cells that act as amplifiers for incoming sound signals to improve detectability and frequency resolution. Outer hair cells can dynamically alter the mechanics of their structural components (stereocilia and cytoskeletons) to sharpen the peak of the cochlear response to incoming sound. Both types of hair cells respond to mechanical stimulation produced by the relative movement of the basilar and tectorial membranes within the cochlea when sound is transmitted through them. Stereocilia set in bundles at the top of the hair cells move in response to incoming sound, and tip links joining shorter to taller stereocilia are pulled, causing ion channels to open, Ca ²⁺ influx, and subsequent cell depolarization. In inner hair cells, depolarization leads to neurotransmitter release and activates the auditory nerve fibers, whereas in outer hair cells, depolarization produces physical changes. The functioning of the hair cells depends upon the action of the stria vascularis, which maintains the ionic balance of the cochlear fluids to provide the required electrical and ionic concentration gradients across the cell membranes.

Damage due to high-level sound occurs at multiple sites including the sensory cells of the cochlea, particularly the outer hair cells, the stria vascularis, and the synapses and neurons of the spiral ganglion of the auditory nerve ( Fig. 2 ). An important mechanism underlying the damage caused by chronic high-level noise exposure is oxidative stress. ⁹ When the hair cells are overworked, the mitochondria, which phosphorylate adenosine diphosphate to adenosine triphosphate to provide energy to the cells, become inefficient and release free radicals (reactive oxygen species), which are generated as part of the phosphorylation process. These charged molecules react with cells, membranes, and DNA in the cochlea, which causes damage and may lead to cell death. ¹⁰

Figure 2.

Diagram of the cochlear partition with relevant structures labeled. Reproduced with permission from Schuenke, Schulte, Schumacher. Atlas of Anatomy: Head, Neck and Neuroanatomy, 2nd ed, Vol. III © 2016, Thieme Publishers, New York, NY. Illustration by Karl Wesker.

On the other hand, the auditory system is also highly adaptive to sound levels, reducing the tendency of auditory neurons to fire during high-level sound exposures and increasing the tendency in low-level sound environments. In high-level sound, adaptation may occur at multiple sites, including the hair cells, ^{8 11} their synapses, ¹² and throughout the auditory nervous system up to the level of the cortex. ¹³ Adaptation is thought to occur constantly, as the sound environment changes, to preserve the auditory system's capacity to respond to changes in sound level: without adaptation, the dynamic range of our auditory system would be compromised, and we would be unable to discriminate the wide range of sound levels that occur in our environment. Thus two types of hearing loss may occur with high-level sound exposure: permanent (due to pathology) and temporary (due to adaptation).

Nightclubs

A major source of leisure-noise exposure for young people is nightclubs. ⁵ Nightclub noise may account for around 70% of the total leisure-noise exposure in young adults. ¹⁴ An Australian study estimated that clubbers experienced on average an equivalent continuous noise level of close to 98 A-weighted decibels over their average attendance time of 5 hours a week. ¹⁵ When compared with the maximum noise exposure acceptable for a working life of 42 years, 10 years of clubbing would generate more than 60% of the acceptable noise exposure for that working lifetime. ¹⁵

Why is nightclub music played at very high levels? One factor may be tradition: playing popular music at high levels may have developed from early in the existence of the genre. Some people believed that the high levels typical for rock-and-roll music were chosen to mask musicians' mistakes and that musicians felt they sounded better if they played louder. ¹⁶ Sound engineers may also increase sound levels to hear more nuances in the music. ¹⁷ The need to overcome crowd noise is an important factor, especially when large numbers of people are present, because they both generate sound themselves (e.g., singing and dancing) and absorb the sound with their bodies. Furthermore, some people enjoy the influence of sound on their vestibular organs, and levels are set accordingly. ¹⁸

Sound measurements in nightclubs appear to rise gradually through the course of the night up to around midnight when they plateau. ¹⁹ These observations are consistent with reports that club managers may have a policy or an accepted practice of increasing music levels through the course of an evening, following the presumed demand of the customers. ¹⁹ In addition, adaptation would occur in the staff themselves, and their auditory neural systems would become less responsive with exposure to high-level sound. The rate that managers turn up the music during the course of the evening may therefore reflect the interplay between the extent that they have adapted to the current sound level and their own personal desire for loudness in the music.

The motivation for bar managers and DJs to play loud music may partly be business related. For example, they may use loud music to retain customers or to control the crowd and reduce conflict. ^{20 21} Loud sound may have other positive effects on business: when music is loud, males drink more, and more quickly, which may be explained by either the high sound level leading to higher arousal or reducing social interaction. ^{22 23 24} On the other hand, young people have been reported to find the sound levels at nightclubs too high. ^{25 26 27} The interplay between the people who provide the music and those who listen is interesting to consider and relates to the concept of perceived loudness as a culturally defined property, not just a property of the physical levels of sound. ²⁸

This concept of nightclubs as one component of a wider culture of loud music helps to understand the CAALM process ( Fig. 1 ). Loud music is used throughout society and is often associated with celebration and enjoyment. A lack of social control over loud music (or willingness to police controls where they exist) may be a manifestation of this culture: loud music tends to be perceived as acceptable and fun even though we know it to be physically dangerous. The perceived benefits of loud music may be what led to its acculturation in the first place.

Perceived Benefits of Loud Music

The CAALM model includes, as a central element, the perception of benefits deriving from loud music.

Arousal and Excitement

One of the reasons people enjoy loud music may be the stimulation of brainstem mechanisms that have evolved for other purposes. ⁷ The reticular formation is a distributed network in the brainstem that has a great deal of control over arousal, and this feature of it has been called the “reticular activating system.” The brainstem pathways and nuclei that process sound connect to the reticular formation, which operates in parallel and interactively with the classical auditory pathway to modulate our experience of sound, and are also involved in other sensory systems, initiation and control of motor activity, autonomic arousal, sleep and wakefulness, and emotions. ²⁹ Because the reticular formation has such broad roles, it is not surprising that it modulates our brain activity in general. ³⁰ It is the source of the acoustic startle reflex—the tendency to jump when exposed to a sudden and unexpected loud sound—and is therefore innervated by neurons at early levels in the auditory pathway. The reticular system's caudal pontine nucleus is stimulated by projections from auditory nuclei, including the cochlear nucleus and superior olivary complex. ³¹ We are not startled every time we are exposed to loud sound, and complex efferent control is present to limit our startle responses, but loud sound exposures, especially when it is late at night, might be expected to maintain arousal via reticular formation activation. Given its role in mediating other sensory information, motor control, and emotion, a nightclub with loud music, dance, darkness, intermittent bright lights, and emotionally laden social situations may be expected to contribute to a great deal of reticular formation activity.

Music influences our bodies and emotions, making us relaxed, aroused, or excited. This is supported by the idea that loud sounds interact with other aspects of our sensory systems: our balance organs may be stimulated by sound at frequencies 100 to 300 Hz at levels >90 A-weighted decibels such as is normal for nightclub music, leading to a desire to move with the music. ¹⁸ The perception of loudness may be influenced by other senses (e.g., touch), ³² and loud sounds may influence our perception of time, causing it to pass more slowly. ³³

Another view of arousal from loud music is captured by the concept of the soundscape. ³⁴ The soundscape reflects our psychological and emotional response to the sound environment, ³⁵ and though this response is not derived solely from the loudness of sound, it would be included. Amplified music is the source of most of the enjoyable loud sounds we hear during common leisure-time exposures. In soundscape terminology, ³⁴ the experience of amplified loud music would typically fit with the concept of pleasant and eventful stimuli that relate to a sense of excitement. ³⁵ Though soundscape research acknowledges the existence of exciting sound, it has tended to focus on the benefits of pleasant but uneventful soundscapes, ³⁶ to produce qualities such as tranquility. ³⁷ Music is certainly regarded as an aspect of the soundscape, ³⁸ and some work has been done to explore the benefits of music as an aspect of the soundscape, ³⁹ though not with a focus on loud music or other loud sounds that people perceive as pleasant. It would be interesting to explore this area in more detail with research using soundscape measures developed for general purposes. ⁴⁰

Social Cohesion

Responding to music creates pleasurable group cohesion by causing people to move and think in concert (in both senses of the term). ¹⁷ This has been demonstrated by its use at events such as political rallies and in religious observances. The idea of loud music drawing people together, making them feel as one, and building rapport can create a deeply shared experience. In nightclubs, the sound dominates the environment, so everybody in the room is experiencing a very similar state: more so than could be said of a room with the same group of people who were holding individual conversations in the presence of quiet music. We are not normally able to gain insight into other people's minds, so this awareness of the internal states of other people, even strangers, may cause the sense of a social bond. Furthermore, the effects of the music are visible in terms of dancing to the beat or at least foot tapping or head movements, ¹⁸ so with loud music governing the room, people feel and move as one. Furthermore, in choosing to attend a venue with a certain style of music, the patrons are indicating a social stance that is shared with others attending the same venue.

Masking Environmental Noise

Loud music can act as a masker for unwanted sounds. ^{41 42} A sound source that has positive emotional associations for the listener and can mask unwanted elements of the sound environment may be expected to be desirable. This idea of music as a shield against unwanted intrusion from the unpleasant sounds of the environment has been discussed previously, mostly in the context of personal audio systems such as smartphones and personal music players. ⁴³ The sound can be seen as representing power over oneself and others. If a person makes loud sound (e.g., playing a stereo loudly or driving a noisy vehicle), it is imposed on anyone within hearing distance. On the other hand, loud music prevents others from dominating one's personal sound environment.

Masking Thoughts

Blesser argued that loud music masks both other sounds and thoughts, and the quality of the music creates a new “aural space” or musical environment that transports listeners out of their everyday environment. ¹⁷ The new environment created by the music is, in itself, positive and captures the listener by transporting them to that place in their minds. So the role of loud music as a masker of other sounds may just be the first step; its provision of a new and better environment is the deeper reinforcer.

Enabling Intimacy

At the same time as drawing larger groups of people together, loud music allows people to interact more intimately. ⁴⁴ In a crowded room, a sense of privacy may be gained due to the impossibility of others overhearing what is said. Furthermore, it is necessary to become physically very close to a person to communicate and to touch them to attract attention. This may break down social barriers to intimate and potentially sexual contact, along with the possible use of alcohol, drugs, and the excitement and arousal provided by the loud music.

Cool Persona

Loud music may also be considered sociologically. ⁴⁵ From this perspective, music can convey a feeling of freedom and a means of creating identity for listeners. By associating with a certain style of loud music, a person subsumes the identity, for example, of a “cool” person who can handle high levels of music. ⁴⁵ The assumption of such an identity may also cause the person to feel that he or she is too cool/tough to be concerned about adverse effects of loud sound. Furthermore, a person adopting such an identity through music may feel that to be seen protecting his or her hearing (e.g., by wearing earplugs) would interfere with the identity.

Conditioning

In addition to adaptation and perceived benefits of loud music, another major feature of our model of loud music enjoyment ( Fig. 1 ) is conditioning. ⁷ As mentioned earlier, in music appreciation, evaluative (or emotional) conditioning may occur, where the pairing of an emotion with a particular piece of music may cause listeners to experience that emotion when they next hear that piece of music. ⁷ More generally, classical (or Pavlovian) conditioning is the process whereby a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with a stimulus that is intrinsically attractive (the unconditioned stimulus). As conditioning occurs, an organism's response to the originally neutral stimulus becomes the same as the natural response to the unconditioned stimulus, so the neutral stimulus has now become a conditioned stimulus. Applying this model to loud sound, the initial experience of loudness may be neutral or even unpleasant for listeners, but if they repeatedly experience the physiological and neurophysiological responses to loud sound in the context of fun and a happy, exciting social and psychological environment, the experience of loudness may become conditioned as do other potentially dangerous behaviors.

Because the physiological response to loudness would be similar across different pieces of music, the sound level itself provides a positive experience for people who experience loud sound while having fun (e.g., regular clubbers). There may be multiple conditioning processes occurring at different times or simultaneously and relating to the different reasons for liking loud music: for example, excitement/arousal, social bonding, intimacy, masking unwanted thoughts and sounds, and the feeling of being cool and tough may all act as “unconditioned” stimuli. Furthermore, in an environment such as a nightclub, there would be other co-occurring unconditioned stimuli that are not directly related to the sound; for example, alcohol and drug consumption, sexual attraction, or being among friends. The pairing of these stimuli with loudness may explain the apparent maladaptive dependency on loud music displayed by some people. ⁴⁶

Personality

In our model, personality is expected to moderate the appreciation of loud sound ( Fig. 1 ). For example, people who exhibit the trait of “sensation seeking” would be drawn to the intense stimulation and arousal provided by loud music. ⁴² Sensation seekers are more likely to engage in risk-taking behavior in general, and therefore may be less likely to avoid noise or seek protection even if they are aware that high-level sound can cause harm. ⁴⁷ On the other hand, noise sensitivity is a personality trait associated with the avoidance of loud sounds. ⁴⁸ People high in this trait tend to avoid high-level sound environments and would experience more discomfort from the perception of loud sound, so would not tend to accept it, and would be less susceptible to conditioning. In contrast, those with low noise sensitivity would be more vulnerable to the perceived benefits of high-level sound environments.

Model of Why People Enjoy Loud Sound

In the CAALM model, we show how the combination of adaptation and tolerance of loud sound and conditioning may be expected to lead to loud music being enjoyable for some people ( Fig. 1 ). Given that nightclubs are in the business of providing people with an enjoyable time, it may be expected that they will provide loud music alongside the other aspects of nightclubs that people find enjoyable (e.g., fun, friendship). The environment of nightclubs is therefore an ideal one for conditioning people to enjoy loud music, but of course the association between loud music and enjoyment is not restricted to nightclubs and appears in many situations (e.g., parties, community events, ceremonies). Essentially, the model shown in Fig. 1 can be seen as having three parallel cycles (shown more simply in Fig. 3 ): adaptation, conditioning, and acculturation to loud music. The third concept, acculturation, is important because it affects people broadly: it refers to the concept of a culture of behaviors and expectations and to the assumption of these as norms for participants. In this context, the culture of loud music is formed as a result of the adaptation and conditioning cycles, the social acceptance of this as part of youth culture, and the development of a business model that depends on, and contributes to, high sound levels.

Figure 3.

Simplified Conditioning, Adaptation, and Acculturation to Loud Music model diagram showing the three parallel cycles that may lead to people enjoying loud sound. In the presence of loud sound, the auditory system adapts and people find it easier to tolerate the sound; loud sound provides benefits to people who become conditioned to enjoy music at high levels; and a culture of loud music develops where people expect loud music as part of entertainment, and venues therefore provide it.

Implications for Hearing Health

Using the CAALM model to understand more clearly why we have so many loud leisure environments, and why people like them, may hold the key to the design of more effective hearing-health promotion programs. Importantly, the model acknowledges the personal rewards of loudness, and demonstrates that the perceived benefits of risk-taking (enjoying loud music) play a significant role in determining behavior. ^{17 49} The rewards of loud sound are immediate, whereas it may be years before the costs are experienced (i.e., damaged hearing). This may be one of the main reasons it is difficult to draw attention to the harm loud sounds may cause. ¹⁷ Another may be that, as a perceived norm of the culture that has been created around it, members of that culture struggle to understand that loud music can be a dangerous activity.

Interventions to increase hearing-protective behavior in high-level sound environments have been shown to be effective in young children, ^{6 50} but in teenagers effects on behavior have tended to be either transient ⁶ or nonsignificant. ⁵¹ These findings are consistent with the theory that conditioning and acculturation of loudness may occur over the life course, with children being less deeply conditioned than teenagers, and not yet acculturated, and thus more open to influence. In research where intervention effects on self-reported behavior in teenagers were sustained, ^{52 53} interventions were more elaborate, and yet effect sizes could still be improved.

An understanding of why people seek loud sound and therefore why entertainment venues provide it may help to address the difficulties in encouraging people to protect themselves from noise injury. If managers knew that some of the patrons found music too loud, ^{25 26 27} their desire to satisfy their customers might lead them to control sound levels, which would be of benefit to the health of patrons and staff. Provision of “ear rest areas” and “no access areas” around speakers to help people enjoy loud music, but with refuges and warnings may also be valuable approaches. ⁵ These changes may also gradually influence the cultural acceptance of loudness.

Future Directions

To test the assumptions of this model, we have conducted interviews with nightclub attendees, DJs, and managers to investigate why people who attend nightclubs enjoy loud sound. These findings will be reported separately; however, it is worth noting here that interviews revealed attitudes and opinions that aligned well with the proposed model. For example, we found that loud sound arouses and excites; it both draws people together socially and separates them to allow intimacy in crowded environments; it can block unwelcome thoughts and mask unwanted sound; and it gives people an identity of coolness and toughness. We also found a desire and expectation from customers and staff in venues for the music to be very loud; however, there was some disparity in that customers reported that music was sometimes too loud for their taste.

Conclusion

In our CAALM model, we propose that physiological adaptation and conditioning of people to enjoy loud sound, along with its intrinsic benefits, have combined to develop a culture of loudness in music. The culture has glamour, and many people are drawn to it, thus encouraging them to tolerate the initial discomfort and making them vulnerable to conditioning. This model may help explain what drives the risk-taking behavior in leisure noise exposure, and interventions to prevent noise-induced hearing loss may benefit from considering the model and processes that we have described here. In particular, our model suggests that interventions are likely to be more effective if delivered during childhood, before conditioning and acculturation have taken place.