The BBC shits all over a classic parental fear :
[A study] revealed that death metal fans are not “desensitised” to violent imagery.
The findings are published in the Royal Society journal Open Science,
“[Death metal] fans are nice people,” said Prof Bill Thompson, from the Australian university, which is based in Sydney. “They’re not going to go out and hurt someone.”
The study in question’s TL;DR :
Abstract
It is suggested that long-term exposure to violent media may decrease sensitivity to depictions of violence. However, it is unknown whether persistent exposure to music with violent themes affects implicit violent imagery processing. Using a binocular rivalry paradigm, we investigated whether the presence of violent music influences conscious awareness of violent imagery among fans and non-fans of such music. Thirty-two fans and 48 non-fans participated in the study. Violent and neutral pictures were simultaneously presented one to each eye, and participants indicated which picture they perceived (i.e. violent percept, neutral percept or blend of two) via key presses, while they heard Western popular music with lyrics that expressed happiness or Western extreme metal music with lyrics that expressed violence. We found both fans and non-fans of violent music exhibited a general negativity bias for violent imagery over neutral imagery regardless of the music genres. For non-fans, this bias was stronger while listening to music that expressed violence than while listening to music that expressed happiness. For fans of violent music, however, the bias was the same while listening to music that expressed either violence or happiness. We discussed these results in view of current debates on the impact of violent media.
And, the professors summarizing the summary, in the BBC article:
Each participant was played Happy [by Pharrell Williams] or Eaten [by Bloodbath] through headphones, while they were shown a pair of images - one to each eye. One image showed a violent scene, such as someone being attacked in a street. The other showed something innocuous - a group of people walking down that same street, for example.
“It’s called binocular rivalry,” explained Dr Sun. The basis of this psychological test is that when most people are presented with a neutral image to one eye and a violent image to the other - they see the violent image more.
“The brain will try to take it in - presumably there’s a biological reason for that, because it’s a threat,” Prof Thompson explained.
“If fans of violent music were desensitised to violence, which is what a lot of parent groups, religious groups and censorship boards are worried about, then they wouldn’t show this same bias. But the fans showed the very same bias towards processing these violent images as those who were not fans of this music.”
This study does not say that death metal inspires joy.
This study doesnt really say anything except specifically that ‘…exhibited a general negativity bias for violent imagery over neutral imagery regardless of the music genres.’ Which doesnt prove anything at all except what the above sentence specifically refers to.
This is junk science at its best because it takes a very general hypothesis and makes a sweeping conclusion. No one really knows exactly how the brain works or whether all human brains work the same or are their differences.
I should have been clearer I copied the BBC’s headline.
Now I’m imagining Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy” sung in a hoarse, raspy death metal voice.
Freude, schöner Götterfunken