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I've noticed this thing for a long time: when I listen to music, have music stuck in my head, or even just listen to a metronome, the tempo affects how I think. I know its primarily the tempo because a metronome seems to produce most of the same effect. The effect it has seems to correspond to what makes sense conceptually: fast tempo encourages quick judgements, not thinking things through, etc; slow tempo encourages contemplative thought, etc

I feel like (but don't necessarily believe that) the preferred [neurological oscillation](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_o) frequency of various parts X of your brain must vary, and if the rhythmic activity in other areas (eg: your auditory and motor cortex) is harmonic with X's activity then that is excitatory for X. No clue if this is true, but it feels true

If I'm listening to a metronome while I'm working, it seems like my work when I'm working fast corresponds to a tempo of ~170 BPM, and functionally slow work corresponds to a tempo of ~80. If I listen to a BPM not corresponding to the right working tempo, then it seems to trip me up

Could be just expectation effects, of course

@jmacc My bet is that we're trained to think this way by Hollywood. They use tempo as a cue for emotion, and most of us have tuned into that by a very young age.

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