7Music & Emotion Flashcards
What are some ways in which people use music in their emotional lives?
Film & television; mood regulation; non-verbal expression; signify event; music therapy (memory trigger; depression treatment, etc)
Compared to perception & cognition, which are potentially universal processes, how are emotions determined?
More subjectively, & in relation to social & cultural norms
Describe the differences between basic & secondary emotions
Basic emotions evolved to cope with fundamental issues of survival (e.g. happy, sad, fear, anger); they have distinct adaptive functions & there is evidence of this across cultures, represented by distinct emotional expressions (e.g. smiling); Secondary emotions are socially constructed & culturally dependent
How is cognition processed?
Through reasoning, planning & remembering processes
According to the post-cognitive view of the information processing model, where do emotions fit with cognition?
Event happens, interpretation (cognition), appraisal/evaluation (emotion arises); we rehearse, make comparisons in LTM & decide what to do with the information
How do emotions fit in relation to the autonomic nervous system (ANS) response?
Emotional response prior to cognitive responses; independent processes
Describe the Mere Exposure effect
Preferences can develop implicitly (without awareness); independent of cognitive processing (implying emotion & cognition are separate)
In a female Amusic patient with right & left temporal lesions, what ability was impaired & what was intact?;
What does this imply?
Impaired melody recognition; intact ability to discriminate music in terms of the emotion it conveyed;
Distinct operations
What did Goldman (1995) propose in regards to Emotional Intelligence?;
In contrast, what did Damasio propose?
A rational mind & an emotional mind, implying a distinction;
That cognitive & emotional processes are integrated, & at a very early stage
What is Affective Blindness?
An inability to ascertain the emotional importance of events
Damasio (1994), believed there was an error in Descartes’ view, & proposed the concept of Somatic Markers. What are these?
“Affective tags” attached to sensory images; tagging each with an emotional association; an experience leads to certain images, which are strongly associated with emotions & feelings
What are some adaptive functions of emotions?
May bias further cognitive processing (e.g. reject or filter situations/actions with negative associations or irrelevant); may support effective decision making; may lead to attention narrowing (e.g. “weapon focus” in eyewitness memory)
Psychophysical Cues in music (e.g. loudness, fast-tempo) lead to arousal. What are they?;
Potentially biologically (hard-wired) significant signals; rapid, automatic, & can occur prenatally; may arise from brain stem (& bypass cognitive processing)
Give two examples of the cognitive component (available to conscious awareness) linking music & emotion;
Music can induce the memory of a significant life episode & emotional experience; Music can elicit visual imagery, which may be emotive;
Cognitive processes may follow psychophysical cues, or what else may occur?
Both processes may operate concurrently (e.g. surprise – enhanced arousal + cognitive appraisal of an unexpected event)
What was Cooke’s (1959) theory about the basis of connection between music & emotion?;
That music consists of various melodic features & patterns that have recognisable emotional significance; certain melodic patterns & intervals represent different emotions (e.g. major 3rd is happy)
Describe Kivy’s (1980) theory about the connection between music & emotion
A listener may be both moved emotionally and perceive the syntactic functions of the expressive features; he describes connections through contour (natural connections; e.g. slow=sadness) & convention (learned customary association; e.g. plagal cadence=Amen)
What was Langer’s (1957) theory about the connection between music & emotion?;
Dynamic form/resemblance of dynamic events (doesn’t represent specific emotion); up/down = predicting & anticipating leading to release or disappointment; symbolic/semantic relationship;
Describe Meyer’s (1956) theory
That the emotional power of music lies in the expectations that it creates in the listener & arousal evaluation; context specific; based on ability to predict events & outcome; appraisal of experience/arousal, followed by emotional response; fulfilled expectations=positive; violation of expectations=negative
What was Mandler’s (1984) theory?
Emotional experiences of music reflect a process of appraising bodily reactions to fulfillments and violations of expected musical events; arousal & complexity; simple music doesn’t give enough mismatch; if too complex, expectancy is violated; should be an optimal balance of violated & fulfilled expectation
What was Berlyne’s (1970-71) theory?
The degree to which the music sounds familiar determines if pleasurable or not; musical preference is based on the preference to maintain the level of preferred arousal (inverted U shape)
Describe Huron’s (2006), theory about the basis of connection between music & emotion
ITPRA evaluation of musical expectancy: Imagination – biological adaptation (more likely to respond to positive emotions); Tension – physiological preparedness for changes in arousal; Prediction - state of reward or punishment in response to accuracy of prediction; Reaction – automatic or visceral response; Appraisal - emotional state after assessing the event
What were Juslin & Västfjäll’s theory about music & emotional connections?
There are six core underlying mechanisms: BRECVEM: Brain stem reflex (automated appraisal; arouses survival function); rhythmic entrainment (music influences internal rhythm); evaluative conditioning (through repetition with US becomes CR); contagion (mimicry of perceived emotions cued by performer); visual imagery (sound evokes images which induces emotions); episodic memory (music linked to significant autobiographical event); & musical expectancy (emotion induced through violation or fulfillment of expectation)
Thompson (2009) found an inverted U function when plotting the relationship between musical preference & complexity (which was moderated by musical training due to modified cognitive schemas). Why would this be?
Preference was reduced if too difficult/complex or too predictable & simplistic (e.g. serialism vs. overly saturated pop music)
According to the Cognitivist view, does music induce emotions or does our emotional state influence the music we choose to listen to?;
What’s an Emotivist’s position on this?;
Listener’s are sensitive to emotion in music, but don’t actually experience it;
Music can elicit emotional responses in listeners;
How is the connections between music & emotion measured & how reliable is it?
Physiological markers (e.g. skin conductance, heart rate, etc); not completely reliable as there may be other variables involved
What are some subjective self-report methods of measuring emotion?
Retrospective judgements (e.g. Hevner’s Adjective Circle, & the Likert scale, reporting intensity activity, happiness, etc); & continuous self-report (e.g. slider, CRDI, etc);
Describe some other ways of measuring emotion
Arousal & valence (e.g. Russell’s two-dimensional emotion space); tension/release; physiological measures (e.g. skin conductance, heart rate, blood pressure, respiration); neural activity measures (e.g. PET)
Schubert (2010) had 25 musically interested participants (13 female), submit a loved & hated musical piece. They listened to 28 pieces for 5 mins, containing a mix of classical, pop, instrumental & vocal. What was recorded on a Listening Appraisal sheet?;
General information about piece, style, etc; familiarity (7-1); liking (loved-hated; 3- -3); quality (good-bad; 3- -3); & emotion questions from 2 perspectives (what’s the music trying to express?; how does the music make me feel?)
What 4 components were reported in relation to the emotion questions in Schubert’s study?
Strength (1-7); valence (positive-negative emotion; 3- -3); activity (active emotion-sleepiness; 3 -3); & dominance (dominant-submissive emotion; 3- -3)
In Schubert’s study, what were the results in regards to how preference was associated with quality, emotion & valence, & familiarity?
Hated music was highly familiar; quality was subjective (possible social influence) & negative emotion was preferred in some cases
How do we respond neurologically to music we like?;
Dopamine release (neurotransmitter associated with pleasure & reward, emotion, mood & alertness; chills or shivers down the spine (subjective emotional response & measurable bodily reponse);
Where does the reward system (major dopaminergic pathways) originate in the brain?
Midbrain (frontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, striatum & hippocampus)
In Blood & Zatorre’s (2001) study on “chills”, 10 musicians chose self-selected chills inducing music from a classical, instrumental genre. What was their task?;
What measurements were used?
Listening to their “chills” music & a control piece (another’s chills music), then rating their emotional response: chills intensity (0-10), emotional intensity (0-10) & unpleasant vs. pleasant (-5-+5);
PET & physiological measures
What neural responses to chills were found in Blood & Zatorre’s study?;
What does this suggest?
Neural activity in the same regions as euphoria inducing activities (e.g. ventral striatum, midbrain, amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, ventral medial prefrontal cortex & subcortical regions);
An evolutionary link – reproduction & survival
What were subjective reports of chills in Blood & Zatorre’s study related to?;
When were chills experienced by participants in 77% of scans?
Changes in heart rate, electromyogram (EMG) & respiration;
When listening to their own music
Grewe, Kopiez & Altenmüller (2009) had 95 participants (mix of musos & non-musos) listen to 7 classical pieces, familiar to the experimental group & unfamiliar to controls. What methodologies were used?
Questionnaire; self-report on continuous affective reactions (intensity of feelings) by holding mouse for duration of chills; physiological measures (e.g. skin conductance response & heart rate)
What were the behavioural & physiological responses in Grewe et al.’s study?;
What was concluded in this study?
Self-report intensity, skin conductance & heart rate peak during chill; familiarity with music affected the chill experience;
Chills are a reliable means of synchronizing physiological response & subjective feelings
Gabrielsson & Juslin (1996) had musicians perform music on violin, guitar, flute & singing to communicate different emotions. How was happiness communicated?;
How was sadness conveyed?;
What about anger?;
And fear?
Fast tempo, bright timbre & exaggerated rhythmic contrasts;
Slow tempo, soft dynamics, slow & deep vibrato;
Rapid tempi, loud dynamics & harsh timbre;
Irregular tempi, soft dynamics & staccato articulations
Hevner noted which musical elements to be most influential in affective judgements?
Pitch, tempo, modality, harmony & rhythm
What do most music listeners’ agree on from around 5 yrs old, in regards to associations between music expression & emotion?;
What emotions are not as easy to identify through music?
Happy music is associated with major mode & sad music is associated with minor mode (sensitivity increases with age);
Fear & anger (possibly reliant on semantic association)
Balkwill & Thompson (1999) investigated Hindustani music’s ability to connect melodic forms (ragas) with moods (rasas). What responses did they find with Western listeners?
They were sensitive to joy, sadness & peace performance intentions; detection was related to structural elements (e.g. tempo & complexity)
Describe two direct consequences for emotional interpretation of music
Psychophysical cues – “seem” emotional; alert to a forthcoming, potentially biologically significant event; arousal response prepares the organism to deal with the event; primitive process found across cultures; Expectance mechanisms – prediction vs. actually occurring events; expectancy-emotion association (biologically advantageous to be able to predict events in the world)
Describe two indirect sources of musical emotion
Extra musical association (e.g. visual imagery); Learned associations (e.g. song reminds me of a life experience)
