Horror soundtracks can make friendly smiles feel eerie and threatening, study finds

A recent study in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology reveals that eerie music can subtly influence how people perceive human facial expressions, making even friendly smiles seem threatening. Researchers measured both subjective ratings and involuntary eye responses, finding that ominous soundtracks biased participants to perceive greater danger in faces.

This phenomenon, known as affective priming, demonstrates how background auditory cues may unconsciously shape everyday social evaluations and media interpretation. The study, conducted by a team at the University of Reading Malaysia, involved 45 university students aged 18 to 25, with participants exposed to either a fear-inducing track from the film *Insidious* or neutral white noise while viewing photographs of young adult models expressing angry, neutral, or happy faces.

Exposure to scary music led to a significant overall increase in perceived threat for all facial expressions, with an average score rising from 18.90 points on a scale of 0 to 100 under white noise to 41.65 points with scary music. Notably, scary music blurred the distinction between neutral and happy faces, making both appear more threatening than previously.