Site blends psychology with music, albeit not very successfully

Site blends psychology with music, albeit not very successfully

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2 MIN READ

I have come across a number of personality profiles online, but a music profile? That is something new, even in the let's-try-everything environment of the Internet. The test is part of signalpatterns.com, a site that attempts to blend psychology and music.

When you enter the site, you are given two options: take a music profile test or a personality test.

The latter will be familiar to anyone who has ever taken Psych 101 - respond to a series of questions by answering whether a given statement applies to you.

Once you finish the test, you are given a graph that shows how you scored in areas like independence, conscientiousness and agreeability. The test itself is nothing unusual.

Ranking

The former is a lot more interesting. You listen to a short sample of 40 songs and answer a question about how much or how little you liked what you heard.

The site then gives you a profile, ranking you in areas such as: loud, percussive, or distorted. It then gives a sample of songs that match your profile. My profile included a number of artists I know, although it identified none of my favourites.

The site does get extra points for even identifying one artist I secretly like although I will rarely admit it, even among friends: Def Leppard. Many other users though have complained about the inaccuracy of the test.

Despite the site's talk about science and using the personality profile for such things as finding your dream job, there was no way to really use the info.

You can share your profile by exporting it to sites such as Facebook, Flickr or Imeem, a social networking site for music fans, but that's about it.

The site itself is fairly new, having launched on December 17, and is still in beta testing, so a lot of adjusts are probably in store.

Signal Patterns is interesting enough for a visit now, but I'd try back in a few months after the website has seen some tweaking.

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