Thankfully I don't have call to commute via public transport all that often, with my trusty bike sparing me from that particular misery.  But this week I had to use pretty much all forms of it.  Bus, tube, DLR, train and aeroplane.  If I was playing transport bingo I'd have won a prize, but alas all I won was a couple of sweaty armpits in my face.

Anyway, this isn't a rant about public transport, nor indeed sweaty armpits.  It's an observation however that many people on public transport listen to music to pass the time.  New research has tested the impact listening to music has on our sense of space.

The researchers basically asked participants to walk towards a stranger until they became uncomfortably close.  The only changes between each experiment was music.  Sometimes they walked in silence, sometimes with happy music, sometimes with sad music, sometimes the music was 'personal', ie through headphones, other times it was played to the room.  After the experiment they were asked to rate how the music affected them emotionally.

Now here's the interesting thing.  When happy music was played through headphones, the experimenter could get incredibly close without the participant feeling uncomfortable.  It literally shrunk their sense of personal space.  None of the other variants in the experiment achieved this.  Indeed unhappy music expanded someones need for personal space, but only when played to the entire room.

"Our study might help to understand the benefit that people find in using personal music players in crowded situations, such as when using the public transport in urban settings," the researchers concluded. "In situations in which there are little possibilities for personal mobility and personal space is constantly compromised, a portable device allowing for a change in the perceived space around would be highly desirable."

So next time you're on an incredibly crowded bus or train the key would seem to be to have some happy music playing over your headphones.