The Influence of Music on Behavior

Abstract

THIS book covers so wide a field that a review of it is far from easy. From the title-page we learn that it was “presented as part of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Psychology of the University of Cincinnati.” The last chapter perhaps provides the key to the book's construction; it consists of a report of the writer's own experiments on the subject carried out during the year 1921–22 in that University. In the conduct of this research the author must have found it necessary to acquaint himself with the accounts of previously published work; the penultimate chapter, entitled “The History of Experimental Work on Reactions to Musical Stimuli,” embodies the results of his extensive reading. Having proceeded thus far, he began to collect the published material concerning the influence of music on work and on the sick, the use of music in magic and in myth, and the reactions of animals to music. These (in reverse order), together with a lengthy introduction, are the titles of the remaining six chapters of the volume.

The Influence of Music on Behavior.

By Prof. Charles M. Diserens. v + 224. (Princeton: Princeton University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1926.) 11s. 6d. net.