Music and emotion

Research into music and emotion seeks to understand the psychological relationship between human affect and music. The field, a branch of music psychology, covers numerous areas of study, including the nature of emotional reactions to music, how characteristics of the listener may determine which emotions are felt, and which components of a musical composition or performance may elicit certain reactions.

The research draws upon, and has significant implications for, such areas as philosophy, musicology, music therapy, music theory, and aesthetics, as well as the acts of musical composition and of musical performance like a concert.

Philosophical approaches[edit]

Appearance emotionalism[edit]

Two of the most influential philosophers in the aesthetics of music are Stephen Davies and Jerrold Levinson.^[1]^[2] Davies calls his view of the expressiveness of emotions in music "appearance emotionalism", which holds that music expresses emotion without feeling it. Objects can convey emotion because their structures can contain certain characteristics that resemble emotional expression. He says, "The resemblance that counts most for music's expressiveness ... is between music's temporally unfolding dynamic structure and configurations of human behaviour associated with the expression of emotion."^[3] The observer can note emotions from the listener's posture, gait, gestures, attitude, and comportment.^[4]

Associations between musical features and emotion differ among individuals. Appearance emotionalism claims many listeners' perceiving associations constitutes the expressiveness of music. Which musical features are more commonly associated with which emotions is part of music psychology. Davies says that expressiveness is an objective property of music and not subjective in the sense of being projected into the music by the listener. Music's expressiveness is certainly response-dependent, i.e. it is realized in the listener's judgement. Skilled listeners very similarly attribute emotional expressiveness to a certain piece of music, thereby indicating according to Davies that the expressiveness of music is somewhat objective because if the music lacked expressiveness, then no expression could be projected into it as a reaction to the music.^[5]

Process theory[edit]

The philosopher Jennifer Robinson assumes the existence of a mutual dependence between cognition and elicitation in her description of "emotions as process, music as process" theory, or process theory. Robinson argues that the process of emotional elicitation begins with an "automatic, immediate response that initiates motor and autonomic activity and prepares us for possible action" causing a process of cognition that may enable listeners to name the felt emotion. This series of events continually exchanges with new, incoming information. Robinson argues that emotions may transform into one another, causing blends, conflicts, and ambiguities that make impede describing with one word the emotional state that one experiences at any given moment; instead, inner feelings are better thought of as the products of multiple emotional streams. Robinson argues that music is a series of simultaneous processes, and that it therefore is an ideal medium for mirroring such more cognitive aspects of emotion as musical themes' desiring resolution or leitmotif's mirrors memory processes. These simultaneous musical processes can reinforce or conflict with each other and thus also express the way one emotion "morphs into another over time".^[6]

Brain stem reflex: "This refers to a process whereby an emotion is induced by music because one or more fundamental acoustical characteristics of the music are taken by the brain stem to signal a potentially important and urgent event. All other things being equal, sounds that are sudden, loud, , or feature fast temporal patterns induce arousal or feelings of unpleasantness in listeners...Such responses reflect the impact of auditory sensations – music as sound in the most basic sense."

dissonant

Rhythmic entrainment: "This refers to a process whereby an emotion is evoked by a piece of music because a powerful, external rhythm in the music influences some internal bodily rhythm of the listener (e.g. heart rate), such that the latter rhythm adjusts toward and eventually 'locks in' to a common periodicity. The adjusted heart rate can then spread to other components of emotion such as feeling, through proprioceptive feedback. This may produce an increased level of arousal in the listener."

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Evaluative conditioning: "This refers to a process whereby an emotion is induced by a piece of music simply because this stimulus has been paired repeatedly with other positive or negative stimuli. Thus, for instance, a particular piece of music may have occurred repeatedly together in time with a specific event that always made you happy (e.g., meeting your best friend). Over time, through repeated pairings, the music will eventually come to evoke happiness even in the absence of the friendly interaction."

Emotional contagion: "This refers to a process whereby an emotion is induced by a piece of music because the listener perceives the emotional expression of the music, and then 'mimics' this expression internally, which by means of either peripheral feedback from muscles, or a more direct activation of the relevant emotional representations in the brain, leads to an induction of the same emotion."

Visual imagery: "This refers to a process whereby an emotion is induced in a listener because he or she conjures up visual images (e.g., of a beautiful landscape) while listening to the music."

Episodic memory: "This refers to a process whereby an emotion is induced in a listener because the music evokes a memory of a particular event in the listener's life. This is sometimes referred to as the 'Darling, they are playing our tune' phenomenon."

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Musical expectancy: "This refers to a process whereby an emotion is induced in a listener because a specific feature of the music violates, delays, or confirms the listener's expectations about the continuation of the music."

Comparison of conveyed and elicited emotions[edit]

Evidence for emotion in music[edit]

There has been a bulk of evidence that listeners can identify specific emotions with certain types of music, but there has been less concrete evidence that music may elicit emotions.^[10] This is due to the fact that elicited emotion is subjective; and thus, it is difficult to find a valid criterion to study it.^[10] Elicited and conveyed emotion in music is usually understood from three types of evidence: self-report, physiological responses, and expressive behavior. Researchers use one or a combination of these methods to investigate emotional reactions to music.^[10]

Gabrielsson, Alf (2011). Strong experiences with music: Music is much more than just music. Oxford University Press.

Juslin, Patrik N., and John Sloboda, eds (2011). Handbook of music and emotion: Theory, research, applications. Oxford University Press.

Willimek, Daniela; Willimek, Bernd (2013). . EUNOMIOS.

"Abstract: 'Music and Emotions -- Research on the Theory of Musical Equilibration (die Strebetendenz-Theorie)'"

Willimek, Daniela; Willimek, Bernd (2013). (PDF). Wilimekmusic.de.

Music and Emotions -- Research on the Theory of Musical Equilibration (die Strebetendenz-Theorie)

This article incorporates material from the Citizendium article "Music and emotion", which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License but not under the GFDL.