22 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 56.3 ms ] thread
Chill music is not "chill out" music, but rather the type of music that gives you a Chill down your back, a shivering sensation of pleasure.
For me, that would be Schoenberg.
I would think that the music eliciting such a response would vary between individuals, or is that not the case? Are there universal patterns in music that would act as "chill music" to a broad spread of the population? I guess I am wondering if "chill music" can be an actual genre where listeners can swap their favorite tracks and such or if it is just music across different genres that individuals might experience this sensation with.
You also gain tolerance to individual pieces of music over time, so would need a steady supply.
Are you sure? That's not my understanding of the term. I'd love to be corrected.
Yep I am sure - read the full paper, it's linked on the right hand side of the article. Some of the examples are the soundtracks from Skyrim and Legend of Zelda...

It seems like an odd term to use though.

Any examples of Chill music on e.g. youtube or soundcloud? Or does the actual music depend on the individual?
Computer: You cannot login, you're too stressed, go home.

I think this is great, but you'd probably need to wear a EEG which is going to be a tough sell until we have something more compact.

I think they've done it with lighter-weight equipment already. I'm acquainted with a couple of the authors in real life, and one of them (Max) showed me a pretty compact headset he said he used in his experiments. I don't remember how well it worked, but it seems like we'll have adequate lightweight equipment soon, if not today.
This is rather brilliant work, but i would suggest thinking carefully before using to secure your production systems. When a sysadmin is woken by a page at three in the morning, becoming calm enough to be able to log in may be a Sisyphean task.
Not quite: "Chill music and stress are both stimuli for a neuro-chemical called Dopamine. However, they release the Dopamine at different parts of the brain ..."
Er, what? That doesn't contradict GP. The system is designed to prevent login if you're too stressed.
This is a very good idea, but the application isn't terribly broad yet. For something you need secured more than you need reliably instant access, I can see this being wonderful. Eventually, when biometric sensors are smaller and cheaper, and AI is a little more mature, that will change.
This will work for the first handful of times! But, like using your favorite song as an alarm for an early class or a stressful job, it creates a large problem for the user and their music taste:

The user's favorite piece of calming music will now be consistently connected as an alarm for the more stressful times of their profession/life.

Eventually, playing that music at any other point will induce some level of panic when they hear it because now they've trained their brain to associate it with this stress.

One day I woke up to the usual buzzer of my decades old alarm clock and decided I would never hear that horrible thing again. I bought an alarm clock that, in theory, wakes you slowly with gradually increasing light and finally, a pleasant little bird song when it's time to get out of bed.

Now, I hate that @#&%ing bird instead of a buzzer.

Needing an alarm clock to wake up is a sign that you don't get enough sleep. You should sleep until you naturally wake up.
https://youtu.be/Jv1Bmne20l4 -- a scene from Clockwork Orange. (Viewer discretion heads-up)

[edit: just realized "lovely lovely Ludwig Van" has been replaced by the uploader. Practically criminal to mess with Kubrik's work ;)]

sounds very similar to lie detector or more like a new improved version of lie detector.
It uses NeuroSky Mindwave Mobile for brain waves, plus a heart rate monitor, plus a one minute rest period before attempting login.

They never tested coercion. "One reason we did not do this is because it is unethical to threaten test subjects in order to verify that our system is fully coercion resistant." That's a problem.

Incidentally, names of chemicals, such as dopamine, are not capitalized.