People can tell whether they like a song within seconds, study finds

Feb. 9 (UPI) -- New research from New York University has concluded that people can determine whether they like a song after listening to it for only a few seconds.

The researchers had participants listen to over 250 songs, as well as excerpts that lasted 5, 10 or 15 seconds. They found that the length of a clip did not alter a person's preference.

"Over the course of any given song, the acoustic properties change dramatically, but that doesn't seem to matter much to the listeners," said Pascal Wallisch, a clinical associate professor at New York University's Center for Data Science and the senior author of the study. "We can determine within 5 seconds or less whether or not we will like it."

The study included 650 university undergraduate students and New York City-area residents.

Song preference also did not impact the ability for the participants to determine whether they liked the song. The researchers noted that only a fifth of the songs were recognized by the participants.

The musical genres included popular songs on Billboard's music charts over the last 80 years and genres like classical, country, jazz, hip-hop, rock, electronic, and R&B/soul.

The findings may help music platforms like iTunes, Amazon, and Pandora when they decide what excerpts of songs to release.

"This finding might have wide-ranging implications for our understanding of what properties of songs evoke certain emotions in listeners," Wallisch said. "The fact that a small excerpt is enough to tell us if we like it or hate it, suggests that we respond more to the general vibe that a song brings to us rather than its musical notes per se."