Musical Aesthetics & Emotion
• Ways of characterizing emotions in
music
• The idea of musical preference
• We all like some forms of
music, and dislike other forms
of music
• Idea of individual difference
response emotional response
• The emotion response to music
• Music engenders in listeners an
emotional reaction
• Emotional reaction presumably
relatively constant across
listeners
Musical Preferences / Aesthetics
• Individual difference factors that
might underlie musical preferences
• Personality
• Preference for certain musical
styles might be linked to
quantifiable characteristics in
temperament or personality
• Physiological arousal
• Individuals with particular
physiological parameters will
prefer music related to those
physiological parameters
• Social identity
• Musical preference is a “badge”
to communicate values,
attitudes, and self-views
Personality Structure and
Musical Preferences
Raymond Cattell’s 16PF
Warmth: Desire to develop close
relations with others
Reasoning: The extent to which you
solve numerical and verbal
problems
Emotional Stability: How calmly you Dominance: Tendency to influence
respond to life’s demands
and/or control others
Liveliness: How freely you express
yourself
Rule Consciousness: How much
value is placed on external rules
Social Boldness: How much at ease
you feel in social situations
Sensitivity: Extent to which emotions
and sentiments influence outlook
Vigilance: The extent to which you
are cautious of other’s motives
Abstractedness: How much attention
is given to abstract rather than
concrete observations
Privateness: How much you like to
keep personal information to
yourself
Apprehension: How much you are
prone to self-criticism
Openness to Change: Extent you
enjoy new situations/experiences
Self-Reliance: How much you enjoy
your own company and trust your
own judgment
Perfectionism: Need to rely on
structure rather than leaving
things to chance
Tension: How easily situations can
cause you frustraction
Personality Structure and
Musical Preferences
Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire
(EPQ-R)
• Extroversion / Introversion (E)
• Extraversion is defined as outgoing,
talkative, high on positive affect, in need
of external stimulation
• Neuroticism / Stability (N)
• Neuroticism or emotionality is
characterized by high levels of negative
affect such as depression and anxiety
• Psychotocism / Socialisation (P)
• Psychotocism is associated not only with
the liability of having a psychotic
episode, but also with aggression.
Psychotic behavior is rooted in
toughmindedness, non-conformity,
recklessness, hostility, etc.
Personality Structure and
Musical Preferences
EPQ-R means and differences for preference for
exaggerated bass
McCown, Keiser, Mulhearn & Williamson (1997)
Variable
Psychotocism
Males
Females
Mean
13.02
10.03
Extraversion
Males
Females
21.23
18.87
Neurotocism
Males
Females
15.21
19.66
Variable
Gender
p level
.001
Mean # of bass choices
Female 6.2
Male
9.4
Extraversion
.05
Low
High
6.7
9.5
Psychotocism
.001
Low
High
5.9
9.7
Personality Structure and
Musical Preferences
Dimensions of musical preference and their
relation to musical attributes
Rentfrow & Gosling (2003)
Personality Structure and
Musical Preferences
Dimensions of musical preference and their
relation to musical attributes
Rentfrow & Gosling (2003)
Musical Preferences and
Social Identity
Perceived normative characteristics of fans of
different types of music
North & Hargreaves (1999)
Musical and Emotion
• Possible reasons for the paucity of
research on music and emotion
• The difficulty of studying emotions
in the laboratory in general
• The dominant influence of
cognitive science on music
psychology
• The difficulty of studying musical
emotions
• The academic study of music as
promoting a particular way of
listening to music
Music and Emotion
Emotion and Meaning in Music
Meyer (1956)
Absolutist view: The idea that musical
meaning lies exclusively in the
perception of the relations set out in the
music itself
Referentialist view: The idea that
music ALSO communicates
extramusical concepts of actions,
emotional states, and so on.
Music and Emotion
A cognitive theory of emotions
Mandler (1984)
• Human cognition operates by means of
perceptual-motor schemata through
which expectancies are generated for
upcoming events and future behaviors
are planned
• If you interrupt an ongoing schema, you
get biological arousal
• The biological reactions triggers a
search for a cognitive interpretation of
what happened, or a search for meaning
• The arousal and interpretation join
together in producing an emotional
experience
Music and Emotion
The ITPRA theory
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•
•
•
•
•
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Huron (2005)
Pre-outcome phase: Feelings that occur prior
to the expected/unexpected event
Post-outcome event: Feelings that after the
expected/unexpected event
Imagination Response: Imagining an outcome
to a particular situation
Tension Response: Prepare organism for
impending event
Prediction Response: Provide positive and
negative inducements that encourage the
formation of accurate expectations
Reaction Response: The immediate protective
response
Appraisal Response: Provide positive and
negative reinforcements related to biological
value of the end state
Music and Emotion
Emotional ratings and musical attributes
Hevner (1935, 1936)
Musical attribute
Minor mode
Emotional descriptions
Pathetic, doleful, sad,
dreamy, tender, yearning
Major mode
Merry, joyous, gay,
spiritual, lofty, dignified
Music and Emotion
Emotional ratings and musical attributes
Cosa, Fine, & Bitti (2004)
Musical attribute
Major mode
Emotional descriptions
Happiness, serenity
Perfect 4th
Minor 7th
Tonally strong
Pleasant
Minor 2nd
Tritone
Active, instable, motion
Music and Emotion
Emotion and brain activation attributes
Koelsch et al. (2006)
Music and Emotion
Emotion and brain activation attributes
Koelsch et al. (2006)