regular physical activity is an important for the prevention and treatment of overweight and obesity .
although physical activity is not the main means for reducing body fat , it improves cardio - respiratory fitness and lowers the risk of heart disease , among others , if performed regularly and safely ( 9 , 16 ) . despite the knowledge of the benefits of exercise , overweight and obese individuals tend to be sedentary ( 1 , 3 ) . regarding their low level of physical activity ,
it has been observed that the way the individual perceives physical exercise tends to influence their participation ( 36 ) . in this sense
, the development of strategies that encourage exercise to be perceived more positively may be interesting for this population .
music is an important way to reduce monotony during exercise ( 17 , 21 , 30 ) .
its use can produce psychological and physiological effects , influencing the rating of perceived exertion ( rpe ) and the attentional focus during exercise ( 21 ) .
the rpe can be defined as the subjective intensity of effort , strain , discomfort , and/or fatigue that is experienced during physical exercise ( 32 ) . in the context of endurance exercise
these terms are dichotomous , while associative attentional focus has been defined as attention in physical sensations or other task - related process , dissociative attentional focus has been defined as attention in sensations or task - not related with the physical work ( 7 , 9 ) . despite knowledge of the effect of music on psychological and psychophysical responses ,
the use of music seems to influence the rpe when compared to no - music conditions . in a study conducted by potteiger , schroeder , and goff ( 29 ) ,
the use of music produced a reduction in all conditions when compared with the no - music condition .
moreover , almeida et al . ( 3 ) found that the rpe is higher with fast tempo music compared with the no - music and medium - tempo music conditions .
when the exercise is performed at low or moderate intensity , external factors , like music , can be process in parallel with physiological cues , attenuating this response on the information process .
however , at higher intensities , physiological cues seem to dominate the processing of information ; while at moderate intensity , external routes , such as the use of music , can be processed in parallel ( 31 , 33 ) .
accordingly , a motivational factor of music  tempo  appears to influence rpe . regarding attentional focus ,
previous studies have observed that elite runners use an associative attentional focus during a race whereas recreational runners have dissociative focus during the effort ( 27 ) .
the associative attentional focus seems to be more productive in highly conditioned individuals because they are able to meet the physiological demands objectively ( 8 , 11 ) .
however , sedentary subjects with lower fitness levels can benefit from a dissociative attentional focus , reducing bodily sensations and positively interpreting the effort . in this manner , strategies to modulate the rpe and make the attentional focus more dissociative could benefit lower - conditioned people .
this study observed the effect of music on the rpe and the attentional focus in self - selected paced walking performed by overweight and obese women .
a sample of 15 women aged 35 to 50 participated in the study ( mean  sd , age 42.9  4.9 years , height 1.56  0.07 m , body mass 79.7  11.9 kg , body mass index 32.7  5.1 kg / m , peak oxygen uptake 24.7  4.7 ml.kg.min . ) .
inclusion criteria were as follows : ( a ) engages in less than 30 minutes of exercise on most days of the week ( 1 ) ; ( b ) has a body mass index ( bmi ) of between 25 and 39 kg / m ; ( c ) does not make use of pharmacological resources that could change the outcome of the study ; ( d ) does not have cardiovascular disease ; ( e ) answers negative to all questions in the physical activity readiness questionnaire ( par - q ) .
this study was approved by the research ethics committee of the federal university of paran , and all participants signed an informed - consent form before starting the research .
the medium tempo was between 115 and 120 beats per minute ( bpm ) while the fast tempo was between 140 and 145 bpm ( 21 ) .
the participants were asked to prepare a list of their three favorite artists , in hierarchical order , to exercise context . upon completion of the list ,
three medium - tempo and three fast - tempo songs from each artist were used for the experimental sessions ( 22 ) .
body weight ( kg stadiometer sanny , so paulo , brazil ) and height ( cm , toledo , sao paulo , brazil ) were measured according to the technique described by lohman , roche , and martorell ( 26 ) . to calculate the body mass index ( bmi ) the following formula was used : kg / m .
this instrument essentially comprises a category rating scale of 15 points , with scores ranging from 6 (  minimal effort  ) to 20 (  maximum effort  ) .
the rpe has been analyzed and related to several physiological variables such as heart rate , oxygen uptake , blood lactate , metabolic acidosis , among others markers ( 5 , 24 ) .
the attentional focus was measured by the attentional focus questionnaire - afq ( 8) . this questionnaire evaluates the focus of attention asses how much exercisers think about some activities along three domains ( association , dissociation and distress ) , comprising 30 questions , with answers ranging from 1 (  not ever  ) to 7 (  all the time  ) , divided into dissociative attention , associative attention , and distress . for the study , we considered only the associative and dissociative attentional domains .
some studies has been discussed the psychometric proprieties and utilized afq to evaluate the attentional focus from exercise ( 25 , 35 ) .
the participants performed an incremental maximal test ( tmax ) using the bruce protocol ( 10 ) .
the test started at a speed of 2.7 kilometer per hours ( km / hr ) and a 10% slope .
every three minutes there was a load increment on both the inclination and the speed to increase participants volitional fatigue .
the tmax was performed on a reebok fitness treadmill ( x fit-7 model , london , uk ) .
the heart rate ( hr , beats per min ) was measured by a polar monitoring system ( polar electro oy , kempele , finland ) . during the test , oxygen uptake ( vo2 )
was measured using the k-4 system ( cosmed , k4b2 , rome , italy ) in the process
 peak oxygen uptake ( vo2peak ) was considered the greatest vo2 achieved during the last 30 seconds of the test
. maximum heart rate ( hrmax ) was defined as the highest value obtained for the hr during the tmax .
this study comprised four meetings : ( a ) familiarization , anthropometric measures and maximal exercise test ( laboratory environment ) ; ( b ) three walking sessions in the external environment , with medium - tempo music , fast - tempo music , and no - music conditions .
participants were requested not to perform physical exercises 24 hours before each workout and not to have energy drinks , coffee , or caffeinated products in a period of three hours before each session ( 2 ) . at first meeting ,
the participants were asked to fill all information and assign the consentient to participate on the research .
rpe scale and afq were shown to participants and they were instructed how to use them .
a period of 72 hours after performing the incremental maximal test was set for the participants to performed the first of the three experimental sessions .
each session had one of three conditions : walking with use of fast - tempo music ( ft ) ; walking with medium - tempo music ( mt ) ; and no - music control ( nm ) .
the experimental sessions were performed on external environment , on a standard outdoor 400-m track .
each session comprised a three - minute of warm - up , 30 minutes of walking at a self - selected intensity and five minutes of  cool down  . at warm - up
, the participants were instructed to walking at an intensity that would prepare them to exercise . at begin of each experimental session , were given the following instruction :  you will be allowed to select an intensity you prefer to perform on overground .
this should be an intensity that you would choose for a 30-min workout if you were participating in a fitness program .
the intensity should be high enough that you would get a good workout , but not so high that you would not prefer to exercise at that intensity daily or at least every other day .
after the first 5 min , they were allowed to adjust their walking speed only every 5 min of the 20-min trial ( i.e. , minutes 5:00 , 10:00 , 15:00 , 20:00 and 25:00 ) . for cool - down ,
the participants were instructed to walking at a lower intensity that they performed during the 30 minute of exercise , at a self - selected pace that made them decelerate .
experimental sessions were conducted individually to avoid effect of group dynamics or social interaction on the psychophysiological responses to exercise ( 13 ) .
the temperature ( degree celsius , c ) was 22.53  3.24 ; 22.20  3.32 and 23.06  2.52 , for nm , mt and ft , respectively .
the percent relative humidity of air ( % ) was 51.26  0.96 ; 51.53  0.83 and 51.26  0.96 for nm , mt and ft , respectively .
the order of the sessions was randomized , and participants were not provided with information about the music tempo in sessions spent with the use of music . in the sessions with music ,
when the participants walking without music , they received the headphone , with this not playing sound . during the experimental sessions , the physiological responses were determined 
breath by breath  and converted to percentages of vo2peak ( % vo2peak ) and hrmax ( % hrmax ) .
the rpe was measured at 5 , 10 , 15 , 20 , 25 , and 30 minutes of exercise .
six points were considered : five - minute averages were used for comparison between conditions ( 01:0005:00 , 06:0010:00 , 11:0015:00 , 16:0020:00 , 21:0025:00 and 26:0030:00 ) . to rpe analysis , were utilized the six time points that they were collected and calculated average of session .
to afq analysis , the sum of each variable ( dissociation and association ) it was utilized to compare the conditions .
data are presented as mean  standard error ( se ) . for all analysis ( physiological , perceptual and attentional focus ) , the repeated measures anova compared the three conditions : medium - tempo music ; fast - tempo music ; no - music control . in the presence of violations in the sphericity assumptions ,
when significance was found , bonferroni s post - hoc was utilized to find where was difference .
a sample of 15 women aged 35 to 50 participated in the study ( mean  sd , age 42.9  4.9 years , height 1.56  0.07 m , body mass 79.7  11.9 kg , body mass index 32.7  5.1 kg / m , peak oxygen uptake 24.7  4.7 ml.kg.min . ) .
inclusion criteria were as follows : ( a ) engages in less than 30 minutes of exercise on most days of the week ( 1 ) ; ( b ) has a body mass index ( bmi ) of between 25 and 39 kg / m ; ( c ) does not make use of pharmacological resources that could change the outcome of the study ; ( d ) does not have cardiovascular disease ; ( e ) answers negative to all questions in the physical activity readiness questionnaire ( par - q ) .
this study was approved by the research ethics committee of the federal university of paran , and all participants signed an informed - consent form before starting the research .
the medium tempo was between 115 and 120 beats per minute ( bpm ) while the fast tempo was between 140 and 145 bpm ( 21 ) .
the participants were asked to prepare a list of their three favorite artists , in hierarchical order , to exercise context . upon completion of the list ,
three medium - tempo and three fast - tempo songs from each artist were used for the experimental sessions ( 22 ) .
body weight ( kg stadiometer sanny , so paulo , brazil ) and height ( cm , toledo , sao paulo , brazil ) were measured according to the technique described by lohman , roche , and martorell ( 26 ) . to calculate the body mass index ( bmi )
this instrument essentially comprises a category rating scale of 15 points , with scores ranging from 6 (  minimal effort  ) to 20 (  maximum effort  ) .
the rpe has been analyzed and related to several physiological variables such as heart rate , oxygen uptake , blood lactate , metabolic acidosis , among others markers ( 5 , 24 ) .
the attentional focus was measured by the attentional focus questionnaire - afq ( 8) . this questionnaire evaluates the focus of attention asses how much exercisers think about some activities along three domains ( association , dissociation and distress ) , comprising 30 questions , with answers ranging from 1 (  not ever  ) to 7 (  all the time  ) , divided into dissociative attention , associative attention , and distress . for the study , we considered only the associative and dissociative attentional domains .
some studies has been discussed the psychometric proprieties and utilized afq to evaluate the attentional focus from exercise ( 25 , 35 ) .
the participants performed an incremental maximal test ( tmax ) using the bruce protocol ( 10 ) .
the test started at a speed of 2.7 kilometer per hours ( km / hr ) and a 10% slope .
every three minutes there was a load increment on both the inclination and the speed to increase participants volitional fatigue .
the tmax was performed on a reebok fitness treadmill ( x fit-7 model , london , uk ) .
the heart rate ( hr , beats per min ) was measured by a polar monitoring system ( polar electro oy , kempele , finland ) . during the test , oxygen uptake ( vo2 )
was measured using the k-4 system ( cosmed , k4b2 , rome , italy ) in the process 
 peak oxygen uptake ( vo2peak ) was considered the greatest vo2 achieved during the last 30 seconds of the test
. maximum heart rate ( hrmax ) was defined as the highest value obtained for the hr during the tmax .
this study comprised four meetings : ( a ) familiarization , anthropometric measures and maximal exercise test ( laboratory environment ) ; ( b ) three walking sessions in the external environment , with medium - tempo music , fast - tempo music , and no - music conditions .
participants were requested not to perform physical exercises 24 hours before each workout and not to have energy drinks , coffee , or caffeinated products in a period of three hours before each session ( 2 ) . at first meeting ,
the participants were asked to fill all information and assign the consentient to participate on the research .
rpe scale and afq were shown to participants and they were instructed how to use them .
a period of 72 hours after performing the incremental maximal test was set for the participants to performed the first of the three experimental sessions .
each session had one of three conditions : walking with use of fast - tempo music ( ft ) ; walking with medium - tempo music ( mt ) ; and no - music control ( nm ) .
the experimental sessions were performed on external environment , on a standard outdoor 400-m track .
each session comprised a three - minute of warm - up , 30 minutes of walking at a self - selected intensity and five minutes of  cool down  . at warm - up
, the participants were instructed to walking at an intensity that would prepare them to exercise .
at begin of each experimental session , were given the following instruction :  you will be allowed to select an intensity you prefer to perform on overground .
this should be an intensity that you would choose for a 30-min workout if you were participating in a fitness program .
the intensity should be high enough that you would get a good workout , but not so high that you would not prefer to exercise at that intensity daily or at least every other day .
after the first 5 min , they were allowed to adjust their walking speed only every 5 min of the 20-min trial ( i.e. , minutes 5:00 , 10:00 , 15:00 , 20:00 and 25:00 ) . for cool - down , the participants were instructed to walking at a lower intensity that they performed during the 30 minute of exercise , at a self - selected pace that made them decelerate .
experimental sessions were conducted individually to avoid effect of group dynamics or social interaction on the psychophysiological responses to exercise ( 13 ) .
the temperature ( degree celsius , c ) was 22.53  3.24 ; 22.20  3.32 and 23.06  2.52 , for nm , mt and ft , respectively .
the percent relative humidity of air ( % ) was 51.26  0.96 ; 51.53  0.83 and 51.26  0.96 for nm , mt and ft , respectively .
the order of the sessions was randomized , and participants were not provided with information about the music tempo in sessions spent with the use of music . in the sessions with music ,
when the participants walking without music , they received the headphone , with this not playing sound . during the experimental sessions , the physiological responses were determined 
breath by breath  and converted to percentages of vo2peak ( % vo2peak ) and hrmax ( % hrmax ) . the rpe was measured at 5 , 10 , 15 , 20 , 25 , and 30 minutes of exercise .
to physiological analysis , six points were considered : five - minute averages were used for comparison between conditions ( 01:0005:00 , 06:0010:00 , 11:0015:00 , 16:0020:00 , 21:0025:00 and 26:0030:00 ) . to rpe analysis , were utilized the six time points that they were collected and calculated average of session . to afq analysis ,
the sum of each variable ( dissociation and association ) it was utilized to compare the conditions .
data are presented as mean  standard error ( se ) . for all analysis ( physiological , perceptual and attentional focus ) , the repeated measures anova compared the three conditions : medium - tempo music ; fast - tempo music ; no - music control . in the presence of violations in the sphericity assumptions ,
when significance was found , bonferroni s post - hoc was utilized to find where was difference .
with regarding physiological responses , there were no differences between conditions for % vo2peak ( f2:30= 0.329 ; p= 0.723 ; p= 0.29 ) or % hrmax ( f2:30= 0.904 ; p= 0.382 ;  p= 0.076 ) .
nm , mt and ft were performed under 77.45  2.89 ; 75.14  2.91 and 75.98  2.86 % hrmax , respectively . with regarding % vo2peak ,
nm , mt and ft performed at 59.04  3.48 , 56.81  3.81 and 58.00  3.90 , respectively .
anova found condition effect in perceptual responses ( f2:28= 4.380 ; p= 0.02 ; p= 0.238 ) .
the post - hoc bonferroni found that rpe it was lower at mt than at nm ( 10.5  0.5 vs. 12.05  0.6 , respectively ) .
there were no differences between ft and mt ( 10.9  0.4 vs. 10.5  0.5 , respectively ) or between ft and nm ( 10.9  0.4 vs. 12.05  0.6 , respectively ) .
attentional focus is present in figure 2 . regarding the dissociative focus , there was effect of condition ( f2:30= 5.975 ; p= 0.008 ; p= 0.352 ) .
the post - hoc bonferroni found that nm was lower than mt and ft ( 39.0  4.1 ; 48.4  4.1 and 47.9  4.5 , respectively ) .
the anova found no effect of the condition on associative focus ( f2:30= 0.013 ; p= 0.987 ;  p= 0.001 ) .
this study observed the effect of music on the rpe and attentional focus at a self - selected paced exercise sessions performed by overweight and obese women .
the results of this study were as follows : rpe was greater in the no - music control compared with that in medium - tempo music ; the dissociative attentional focus was higher in conditions with medium and fast tempo music compared with the no - music control ; no differences were observed among the three conditions in associative attentional focus . reducing the rpe through the use of music has been found in previous studies ( 29 ; 34 ) .
however , this effect depends on the intensity at which the exercise is performed . at high intensities ,
the physiological feedback from exercise seems to dominate the processing of information for the modulation of the rpe . on the other hand , at low and moderate intensities ,
external factors such as the use of music can be processed in parallel in the process of the rpe ( 8 , 11 ) .
the intensity of walking sessions were self - selected paced , that were performed at moderate intensity ( 1 ) . in this sense , using music in low- or moderate - intensity exercise , such as walking , can be interesting for the participants to experience exercise in a more positive way .
the fact that the rpe shows no differences between ft and nm may be due to the stimulus exposure time .
in fact , the literature shows that the tempo of music can influence the rpe of the subject during physical exercise ( 3 ) .
( 21 ) suggest that continuous exposure to fast tempo music may result in reduced motivation , leading to loss of interest in the activity .
the relevance of the stimulus is the causative factor in changing the attentional focus , that can be explained by social - cognitive perspective of perceived exertion and exertion tolerance ( 33 ) . with low or moderate intensity
, the focus on stimuli unrelated to the exercise predominates in the formation of cognitive response because the exercise has been undertaken lightly . on the other hand , at higher intensities the brain shifts attention to internal cues information due to changes caused by the increased exercise intensity .
our results can confirm this theory , where the session s intensity were at moderate intensity ( 1 ) .
dissociative attentional focus has been received attention because your association with factor linked at adherence to exercise ( like affective response , enjoyment , and others ) . is well established that if the exercise is not perceived as enjoyable , tolerable or comfortable , probably individuals will not repeat the activity and will drop out the training ( 15 ) .
the dissociative strategies can be a solution to how the exercise stimulus is experienced ( 25 ) .
dissociative techniques have been suggested to diverting attention away from uncomfortable or displeasure stimulus during exercise .
moreover , dissociative focus has been positively associated with revitalization , positive engagement , and reductions in physical exhaustion during exercise ( 23 ) .
for example pennebaker and lightner ( 28 ) found that external focus was better enjoyment and satisfaction compared to internal focus during aerobic exercise .
another question , is that manipulating attentional focus during exercise , like music use , for example , can influence feeling of pleasure and enjoyment during exercise session , even when at intensities slightly above from ventilatory threshold ( 20 ) .
dissociative attentional focus has been suggested improve both immediate and long - term exercise program adherence ( 14 ) .
however , few studies has been investigated the relationship between dissociative attentional focus and adherence or maintenance .
annesi ( 4 ) found that dissociative attentional focus during exercise had significantly lower drop out , as well as trend toward to higher attendance than control condition .
nonetheless , the causal effects between dissociative attentional focus and adherence need of experimental designs to be explained .
the present sample was comprised of overweight and obese women adults and thus the findings can not be readily generalized to the other population without replicate the same design .
the benefit of exercising outdoors versus indoors has been established in the literature ( 12 ) .
the present participants walking at an external environment in relative isolation , and it is noteworthy that inmost real life exercise environments .
the present findings show that at moderate exercise intensity , external factors can modulate psychological responses
. the use of music while walking at a self - selected paced intensity can improve dissociative attentional focus during exercise . moreover , medium tempo music can lower perceived exertion in overweight and obese individuals .
our results have practical implication for people that could benefit from strategies that cause a lower interpretation from internal cues during exercise , as overweight and obese women . for future studies , we suggest designs that use dissociative strategies on specific people , as obese man , elderly and sedentary .
 this study investigated the influence of music on the rating of perceived exertion ( rpe ) and attentional focus during walking at a self - selected pace . 
 fifteen overweight and obese women volunteered to participate in the study . 
 they underwent four sessions : the first for incremental maximal test and anthropometric measurement followed by three experimental sessions . 
 after the first session , they were exposed to three 30-minute walking sessions at a self - selected pace in a counterbalanced order : fast - tempo music ( ft ) , medium - tempo music ( mt ) and no - music control ( nm ) . 
 borg s rpe scale and an attentional focus questionnaire were used to measure the perceptual response and attentional focus , respectively . 
 results showed that the rpe was higher in the no - music control than in the medium - tempo music ( 12.05  0.6 vs. 10.5  0.5 ) . 
 furthermore , dissociative attentional focus was greater for both conditions with music in comparison with the no - music control ( nm= 39.0  4.1 ; mt= 48.4  4.1 and ft= 47.9  4.5 ) . 
 the results indicated that the use of music during walking can modulate attentional focus , increasing dissociative thought , and medium - tempo music can reduce the rpe . 
INTRODUCTION
METHODS
Participants
Protocol
Statistical Analysis
RESULTS
DISCUSSION