1
DOES A CONNECTION EXIST BETWEEN AUDITORY PERCEPTION
ACCURACY ABILITIES AND EMOTIONAL EXITATATION?
Kari Suoniemi
Tampere University
Department of Anthropology
Finland
Abstract
This empirical research used statistical (SPSS) methods to determine whether people have significant
differences to perceive, discriminate and memorize the basic elements of musical structures and whether
these cognitive abilities were linked to emotional sensitivity. Two experiments were conducted: a musical
ability test by A. Bentley, and a questionnaire containing rating scales to make self-reports how strongly
students (N=201), choir-singers (N=120) and control group (N=70) were emotionally affected by their daily
listened favorite music. The two questions asked were: 1) Are there significant musical test score differences
between three groups: students, coir-singers and control group measured by Bentley’s musical ability test? 2)
Does a significant connection exist between perceptual accuracy and memory abilities and primary emotional
sensitivity intensities? Results displayed significant test score difference between choir-singer and control
groups. There were five significant emotional intensity differences between high accurate (48-60 scores) and
low accurate (1-37 scores) perception and memory ability category groups.
Keywords: perception accuracy, musical schema, amygdala, emotion, cued recall, self-report, priming
Introduction
Emotional experiences are subjective perceptual and cognitive processes that may include
overt behaviours and psychophysical reactions. Investigators agree that emotions are in
general conscious and thus possible to remember and estimate (see Ekman and Davidson
1994, 411-430; Sloboda and O’Neill 2001, 71-98; Gabrielsson 1991).
The present empirical investigation used self-reports and free recall to evaluate
emotional affects of people’s daily favourite music. The aspects of music structures most
obviously associated with emotion are melodic contour and modality (Gerardi and Gerken
1995; Gabrielsson and Linström 2001, 223). Even in 1930’s was established that ascending
vs. descending melodic contours, major vs. minor modalities or fast vs. slow tempos evoke
consistent emotional responses in adult listeners (Hevner1937).
A musical ability test devised by Bentley (1966) is able to measure perceptual abilities
directly related to musical structure, which include how well one can discriminate pitches
of sounds, and remember and discriminate details in melodic contour, chords or rhythmic
differences. Such discrimination abilities can be seen as a fundamental base for mastering
the more complicated abstract hierarchy and syntactic rules of the musical memory
structures.
There are lot of electrophysiological research that can demonstrate cognitive perceptual
sensory differences between musicians and non musicians (see Besson 1994; Tervaniemi
1993, 150; Tervaniemi, Iivonen, Karma, Alho and Näätänen; Hodges 1996, 240) but only a
few research that has made an effort to display differences between emotional affections
and cognitive perceptual sensory abilities (see Blood, Zatorre, Bermudez and Evans 1999;
Koelsh 2005; Krumhansl 2002; Halpern 2001; Kilpatrick, Zald, Pardo and Cahill 2006).
2
Emotional intensities are linked to imagery abilities prior to auditory sound images
based on thinking processes and activities in the autonomous nervous systems. The
cognitive schema theory is used to describe the listener’s syntactic memory knowledge of
the musical structures. Internal schemas serve to interpret music as well as to produce
expectations and violations about the probable progressions of melodies. When a cued
schema from declarative memory differs from the musical expectations an evaluation
process with emotional affect follow (see Gawer & Mandler 1987; Meyer 1956). Hormones
and neurotransmitters inhibits or facilitates the though or motor process associations and
plays an important role in processing of emotional excitation (Guyton and Hall 2000, 679).
The amygdala is supposed to be an important nucleus connecting emotional intensity to the
long-term memory images and perceptual experiences (Le Doux 2002; Koelsh 2005). Ii is
likely that emotional excitation of the hierargical schema memory system is associated with
better memory performance of music in a perception task.
Carl Seashore has proposed that the sense of pitch determines not only what we hear, but
fundamentally what we remember, imagine, and think, and most important of all, it
determines in large part what emotional reaction we have to the tone (Seashore 1967, 63).
The mechanisms underlying musical experiences have not well studied. However, it is
likely that emotional intensity is an automatic counterpart of the perceptual and
discrimination mechanisms and thus a psychophysical factor in musicality (see Suoniemi
2008, 54-64). The present investigation is an attempt to discover weather there exist
significant emotional intensity differences between high accurate and non accurate
perception and memory abilities.
Materials and Method
Subjects
A self-evaluation questionnaire was given to secondary school students (N=201) aged 15
to16 years, choir-singers (N=120) aged 30 to 55 and control-group (N=70) aged 30 to 50
years. Students were not involved in music-oriented school education. They formed a good
random sample of young Finnish people who were mostly listened to techno-, rap- and
rock/pop-music. Control-group’s people have not musical activities and they can not name
C-major scale notes. They listened mostly to rock/pop, classical music and popular hits.
Choir-singers listened to many different musical styles probably due to their vast choir
repertoire. They listened for example classical music, rock/pop-music, popular hits, operamusic, folk-music and jazz-music.
Test materials
The two tests were demonstrated 1) Bentley’s (1966) musical ability test which measured
perceptual and memory abilities such as: pitch discrimination ability, tonal perception and
memory ability, chord perception (analysis) ability and rhythmic perception and memory
ability, and 2) Self-reports of the emotional intensities, which were based on listening
experiences of one’s daily favorite music. The selected primary emotions for the
investigation can be seen in table 2.
Procedure
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The students were tested in classroom settings during a school hour. The students’ desks
were far enough apart to prevent answers being copied from each other. Choir-singers were
tested in their practicing places and control-group in the auditory of library Metso. The
music ability test by Bentley involved listening tasks from a cassette tape with English
language instructions lasting some 35 minutes. The Finnish language version of the
instructions was displayed on the blackboard. Next came the questionnaire, which asked the
people to make subjective intensity evaluations based on their daily listened favorite music
scoring their answers from 1 to 5.
Statistical Method
The original test groups (Table 1) were redefined into three categorical test score groups
based on success in the musical ability test by Bentley. The three categories were formed as
follows: high accurate perception and memory ability (48-60 scores), medium accurate
perception and memory ability (38-47 scores), and non accurate perception and memory
ability (0-37 scores). In order to simplify the emotional grading system, subject’s emotional
intensity values (original scale 1-5) were combined and named as follows: 1-2 = low
emotional intensity, 3 = medium emotional intensity and 4-5 = high emotional intensity.
SPSS for Windows 10.1 was used for the data analysis that involved the use of descriptive
statistic, ONE-WAY ANOVA, MANOVA variance analysis and BIVARIATE correlation
analysis.
Results
Choir-singers have better test scores in all test parts especially pitch discrimination test
scores and tonal memory test scores were much higher and their standard deviation lower
than by the students group or control group (Table 1 about here). For example there was
only 2.3 test scores difference of the mean between students and control-group but the
mean differed 10.9 between control-group and choir-singers that was significant (p<.001).
Table 1. The descriptive statistics of the three test groups measured by Bentley’s musical
ability test (Suoniemi 2008, 88)
Test
groups
Students
Choirsingers
Controlgroup
Total.
Pitch
discrimination
test (max. 20)
Tonal
memory test
(max. 10)
Chord
analysis test
(max. 20)
Total
score
(max. 60)
201
11,3
3,1
Rhythmic
memory
test (max.
10)
201
7,6
2,2
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
201
14,1
4,1
201
6,6
2,1
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
120
17,0
2,4
120
8,5
1,2
120
13,6
3,2
120
8,7
1,4
120
47,8
6,4
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
70
13,1
4,3
70
6,0
2,5
70
10,6
2,9
70
7,2
2,1
70
36,9
8,2
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
391
14,8
4,0
391
7,1
2,2
391
11,9
3,3
391
7,9
2,0
391
41,6
8,9
201
39,6
8,5
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Musical ability test scores were recalculated and divided into three perception accuracy and
memory categories based on the test score distributions. The percentage distribution
categories were formed as follows:
A. High accurate perception and memory ability (48 – 60 scores), 27.9% of people
B. Medium accurate perception and memory ability (38 – 47 scores), 45.3% of people
C. Low accurate perception and memory ability (1 – 37 scores), 26.9% of people
The descriptive statistic and variance analysis demonstrates systematic sensitivity
differences between musical test score categories (Table 2 about here) and primary
emotional intensities. The intensity differences indicated that people with high accurate
perception and memory abilities experienced five primary emotions significantly more
strongly than people with non accurate perception and memory abilities.
Table 2. Descriptive statistic and variance analysis (ANOVA) between self-reported
primary emotional intensities and perception and memory category abilities (Suoniemi
2008, 92).
Primary
emotions
Joy
Sorrow
Disgust
Aggression
Amazement
Fear
Interest
Perception and memory
category
Low accurate (1–37)
Medium accurate (38–47)
High accurate (48–60)
Low accurate (1–37)
Medium accurate (38–47)
High accurate (48–60)
Low accurate (1–37)
Medium accurate (38–47)
High accurate (48–60)
Low accurate (1–37)
Medium accurate (38–47)
High accurate (48–60)
Low accurate (1–37)
Medium accurate (38–47)
High accurate (48–60)
Low accurate (1–37)
Medium accurate (38–47)
High accurate (48–60)
Low accurate (1–37)
Medium accurate (38–47)
High accurate (48–60)
Emotional intensity (max. 5)
Mean
Std.
N
Deviation
4.01
1.10
100
4.32
0.9
154
4.71
0.6
93
3.14
1.3
100
3.68
1.2
154
3.97
1.2
93
2.43
1.36
100
2.62
1.40
154
2.61
1.30
93
2.30
1.28
100
2.50
1.26
154
2.65
1.28
93
2.11
1.07
100
2.33
1.03
154
2.51
1.20
93
1.93
1.11
100
2.05
1.02
154
2.18
1.07
93
3.25
1.30
100
3.65
1.02
154
3.91
1.10
93
ANOVA
df
F
(p)
2
13.12
.001***
2
11.33
.001***
2
1.215
.298
2
2.97
.052**
2
3.100
.046*
2
1.191
.305
2
9.34
.001***
*
= p < .05
** = p < .01
*** = p < .001
Results display that disgust and fear do not have significant link between perceptual
accuracy and memory abilities. But it seems likely that there are a strong cognitive link
between emotional intensities such as joy (F(2, 391)=13,12, p<.001) sorrow (F(2,
391)=11,33, p<.001) interest (F(2, 391)=9,34, p<.001) and high and low perceptual
accuracy and memory abilities. The same systematic intensity differences between accuracy
abilities and emotional intensities of the three test groups can be seen in figures 1 and 2.
Notice that emotional intensity lines of the different perception ability categories by the
students, coir-singers and control group do not across and there were no interaction (all
figures see Suoniemi 2008, 93).
5
Joy
Sorrow
5,0
5,0
4,8
4,8
4,6
4,4
4,6
4,2
4,0
4,4
Perception category
Emotional intensity
4,2
4,0
3,8
3,6
Students
Choir-singers
3,8
Perception category
3,6
High accurate 48-60
Medium accurate
3,4
High accurate 48-60
3,2
Medium accurate
3,0
38 -47
38-47
2,8
Low accurate 1-37
Control group
2,6
Low accurate 1-37
Students
Choir-singers
Control group
Testgoups
Testgoups
Fig 1. Intensity of joy
Fig 2. Intensity of sorrow
The subtest correlations between the four different perception accuracy and memory
abilities and primary emotional intensities can be seen in table 3.
Table 3. Bivariate correlations between the perception accuracy and memory abilities of
the four subtest parts and emotional intensities (Suoniemi 2008, 95)
Subject (N=391)
Pitch discrimination
and memory ability
(max. 20 scores)
r
Emotional
intensity
Joy (1-5)
Sorrow (1-5)
Disgust (1-5)
Aggression (1-5)
Amazement (1-5)
Fear (1-5)
Interest (1-5)
* = Significant at < .05 level
** = Significant at< .01level
.213**
.209**
.096
.200**
.111*
.069
.193**
Tonal perception and
memory ability
(max.10 scores)
r
.258**
.185**
.094
.087
.158**
.140**
.237**
Chord discrimination
ability (max. 20
scores)
r
.214**
.171**
.001
.025
.087
.009
.159**
Rhythmic perception
and memory ability
(max.10 scores)
r
.223**
.140**
.073
.008
.050
.017
.184**
The correlations are not high but they are likely to display which one of the four subtest
parts of the perception and memory abilities were stronger related to the distinct emotional
intensities. For example disgust and fear have only low correlations to all perception
abilities. But emotions such as joy, sorrow and interest have significant correlation to all
perception and memory abilities.
Discussion
Investigation suggests that people in general have extensive ability differences to perceive,
discriminate and memorize the details of the musical test items. It is difficult to estimate
how much genetic heritage or musical exercises declare the significant difference between
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choir-singers group and control group. Surely both the genetic heritage and musical
exercises are important factors. Results demonstrate also that five of the primary emotional
intensities are significantly linked to cognitive perceptual abilities and that they differ
systematically between people who have high accurate and low accurate perception and
memory abilities. In addition results suggest that pitch, tonal, chord, and rhythmic
perception accuracy abilities can have different emotional intensity affects. What is the
inner mechanism of emotional affections and how they could be linked to cognitive musical
perception abilities? A complicated answer could be that emotional intensities are linked to
the hierarchy and quality of the acquired structural details of musical memory schemas and
their working memory processes of the frontal and auditory sensory cortex (STG), which
are linked to the psychophysical mechanism of the limbic and paralimbic cerebral system
circuitry (Koelsch 2005; Blood, Zatorre, Bermudez and Evans 1999).
A theory of the musical perception abilities linked to emotional values may contribute to
neurohormonal and neurotransmitters substances that change the emotional intensity values
based on violation of the auditory sensory expectancies. Perception accuracy can in general
lead to perceived tension (Krumhansl 2002) of the musical schemas but there may be a
more exact connection between sensory perception accuracy and emotional excitation.
First, sensory perception accuracy and memory ability differences effect on dissimilar
extend of expected violation (Besson 1994; Tervaniemi, Iivonen, Karma and Näätänen
1997) that may be a factor to inhibit or increase emotional excitation between recall from
long-term memory associations and assimilations in the working memory processes.
Emotional excitation means that neurotransmitter responses permits the slow or rapid
generation of multiple images so that the associative process is richer and associations are
made to the large variety of cues available (Damasio 1994, 163). The rapid generation is
contributed by the brain steams endings that release the neurotransmitter substance called
acetylcholine, which serves as an excitatory signal, lasting only a few milliseconds (Gyton
and Hall 2000, 678). Second, high sensory perception accuracy can be an automatic booster
of the rules and acquired syntaxes and thus the base on detailed cues and priming that
coordinates assimilations of the musical schemas in the working memory process.
Joy, sorrow and interest are quite plausible to express by acquired details of musical
structures such as minor vs. major chords or fast vs. slow rhythms. The intensity of the
primary emotions such as joy, sorrow and interest are surely based on reasoning and
perception accuracy abilities because we like to listen to music which has a distinct style of
the syntactic rules and perception accuracy is an important quality to acquire and memorize
the details of one’s favorite music structures. Fear and disgust were not connected to
perception accuracy abilities of musical structures. A hypotheses could be that fear and
disgust do not need to cognitive perception accuracy abilities and reasoning processes of
musical structures but are processed direct from medial geniculate to amygdala (see Le
Doux 1996, 152). Results suggest that emotional intensities such as joy, sorrow and interest
and perception accuracy abilities of the musical structures seem to link together and differ
markedly even significantly between ordinary people.
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