Physical exercise increases perceived musical pleasure: Modulatory roles of arousal, affect, or dopamine?

Music’s ability to influence exercise performance is well known, but the converse, how exercise influences music listening, remains largely unknown. Exercise can elevate arousal, positive affect, and neurotransmitters including dopamine, which are involved in musical pleasure. Here we examine how exercise influences music enjoyment, and test for a modulatory role of arousal, affect, and dopamine. Before and after exercise (12 min of vigorous running) and a rest control session, participants (N = 20) listened to music clips and rated their enjoyment and subjective arousal; we also collected ratings of affect and eye-blink rates, an established predictor of dopamine activity. Ratings of musical enjoyment increased significantly after exercise, but not after the rest control condition. While changes in subjective arousal ratings did not differ between exercise and control conditions, change in subjective arousal correlated with change in music enjoyment. After exercise, the change in music enjoyment had a positive but non-significant correlation with change in eye-blink rates (r = .36). Positive affect increased more after exercise than after the control session, but the change in positive affect did not correlate with change in music enjoyment. In sum, exercise leads to increased musical enjoyment, and this effect was related to changes in arousal.