Psychological effects of music listening habits on emotional wellbeing and cognitive performance in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Liu L
Frontiers in psychology · 1 cita
Cómo se estudió
- Diseño
- Revisión sistemática (indexado por PubMed)
- Estudiado en
- Personas
- Resultado principal
- Marcadores de salud y funcionamiento
Quién lo pagó
- Financiación
- Financiación independiente
Según la declaración de financiación del texto completo.
Publicación
- Publicado
- 2026-07-09 · Front Psychol · vol. 17 · pág. 1846437
- Editorial
- Frontiers Media
- Citado
- 1 cita · más que el 90% de estudios similares · 2.3× el promedio de su campo
- Impacto
- Entre el 10 % más citado de su campo
- Referencias
- 60 trabajos
- Acceso
- Acceso abierto (revista) · CC-BY
- Áreas de investigación
- Music Therapy and Health · Neuroscience and Music Perception · Art Therapy and Mental Health
- Palabras clave
- music listening, music intervention, emotional well-being, anxiety, depression, stress, cognitive performance, memory, executive function, attention, adults, self-regulation, music therapy
1 autor
- Liwen Liu🇺🇸 · autor de correspondenciaAcademy of Art University
Resumen
El texto original del estudio, en el idioma en que se publicó.
Background
Music has long been incorporated into self-regulatory practices and rehabilitation programs. Despite growing evidence supporting its benefits, the comparative effects of routine music listening and systematic music-based therapeutic interventions on emotional and cognitive outcomes among adults have not yet been clearly established. This meta-analysis and systematic review summarized evidence on both types of exposures to explain their effects and important moderators.
Methods
Following PRISMA 2020, Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and PsycINFO were searched up to March 2026, identifying 32 eligible studies (16 on music listening/receptive listening and 16 on music-based interventions) reporting emotional (anxiety, depression, stress, and well-being) and cognitive outcomes (global cognition, memory, executive function, and attention) in adults. The risk of bias was determined using ROBINS-I and RoB 2.0, whereas certainty of evidence was determined using GRADE.
Results
Direction-of-effect tallies showed that almost no study reported worsening, with a clear predominance of emotional improvement across designs. Random-effects meta-analyses indicated small-to-moderate benefits of both listening and interventions for state anxiety, depressive symptoms, and emotional well-being, with slightly larger effects for structured programs. Music-based interventions produced small positive effects on global cognition, memory, and executive function, whereas attention effects were weaker and more heterogeneous. Meta-regression suggested that older age, clinical status, longer intervention duration, and active (versus purely receptive) formats were associated with stronger effects. The risk of bias was mostly low to moderate, and there was some evidence of small-study effects for emotional outcomes, leading to moderate overall certainty for emotional benefits and low-to-moderate certainty for cognitive benefits.
Conclusion
These findings support music as a low-cost adjunct to promote emotional well-being and modestly support cognition, especially in older and clinical populations, while emphasizing the necessity of larger, rigorously controlled, mechanism-focused trials.
Resumen vía Europe PMC. Los derechos de autor siguen siendo de los autores o la editorial (CC BY).
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