The academic discipline of music and emotion investigates the psychological interplay between human affect and musical phenomena. This specialized field, a sub-discipline of music psychology, encompasses diverse research domains, such as the intrinsic nature of emotional responses to music, the influence of listener attributes on emotional experiences, and the specific musical elements within a composition or performance that evoke particular affective states.
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.
This research draws upon and significantly informs various disciplines, including philosophy, musicology, music therapy, music theory, and aesthetics, alongside the practical domains of musical composition and performance.
Overview
The capacity to perceive emotion embedded within music emerges during early childhood and undergoes substantial refinement throughout developmental stages. While the attribution of specific emotional states to musical pieces commences in childhood, the precise age of this developmental milestone remains a subject of ongoing scientific debate. In adulthood, human physiological responses to music are quantifiable: auditory engagement with music activates the cerebellum, elevates dopamine concentrations, and reduces cortisol levels within the brain.
Furthermore, the ability to discern emotion in music is influenced by cultural factors, with cross-cultural investigations revealing both commonalities and divergences in emotional perception. While the recognition of fundamental emotional characteristics appears to be culturally universal, individuals typically exhibit greater facility in perceiving emotions, especially subtle nuances, within music originating from their own cultural background.
Development
The development of musical-emotional understanding commences during infancy, frequently through exposure to parental singing and prosodic speech. Infants generally demonstrate a preference for positively valenced speech over neutral speech, and for joyful music over melancholic music. Prior to approximately four years of age, children generally exhibit difficulty in distinguishing between musical emotions, especially complex ones, although infants as young as five months have, under specific circumstances, demonstrated the capacity to differentiate between happy and sad musical passages. Nevertheless, children as young as three years old can identify musical excerpts as happy or sad based on their major or minor modality. Children aged four and five years can typically categorize musical emotions as "happy" or "sad," but encounter challenges with more intricate labels like "angry" and "afraid."
Associations between music and emotion may arise from innate predispositions, learned experiences, or a combination thereof. Research involving young children and culturally isolated populations indicates innate associations for musical features that parallel human vocal expressions (e.g., low and slow tempos correlating with sadness, while faster and higher pitches correlate with happiness). Conversely, cross-cultural investigations suggest that the associations between major and minor modes, and between consonance and dissonance, are likely acquired through learning.
Approaches
Appearance emotionalism
Certain philosophers, including Stephen Davies, contend that music elicits emotion through its resemblance to human emotional expressions, a theoretical framework Davies designated as 'appearance emotionalism.' This theory posits that the structural and formal elements of music mirror human behaviors, such as patterns of movement and speech, which are intrinsically linked to emotional communication, thereby inducing corresponding emotional states in the listener during musical engagement. Individual variations exist in the associations between specific musical features and emotional responses. Davies further asserts that musical expressiveness constitutes an objective attribute of the music itself, rather than a subjective projection by the listener. Conversely, critics of appearance emotionalism argue that establishing a literal and objective correspondence between musical characteristics and expressive behaviors is challenging, and that musical elements often associated with specific emotions, such as glissandos and deep, somber timbres, do not inherently mimic human expressive behaviors pertinent to those emotions.
Neuroscience of music and emotion
Contemporary neuroscience has elucidated the brain's mechanisms for predicting and reacting to musically significant emotional stimuli. Studies on rhythmic incongruity demonstrate that deviations from anticipated musical patterns elicit robust neural activity in auditory and frontal cortical areas, substantiating theories that the brain consistently employs predictive coding to process musical architecture. Such predictive mechanisms are fundamental to the emotional impact derived from musical anticipation and tension. Comparative research on diverse forms of musical information processing indicates that pitch perception and vocal memory engage distinct neural systems, with superior memory for vocal music manifesting irrespective of an individual's pitch-processing capabilities. These observations corroborate models positing that emotional reactions to music originate from distributed neural networks that differentially process rhythm, pitch, timbre, and vocal elements. Furthermore, physiological investigations reveal that low-frequency musical components can intensify both emotional and neural responses. High-amplitude bass frequencies elevate physiological arousal, modulate neural function, and enhance self-reported emotional intensity during auditory engagement. The engagement of subcortical pathways in the processing of low frequencies contributes to the profound, visceral quality of emotions evoked by music.
Process Theory
Developed by philosopher Jennifer Robinson, the "emotions as process, music as process" theory (frequently abbreviated to process theory) posits a reciprocal interdependence between cognitive processes and emotional elicitation. Robinson contends that emotional elicitation commences with an "automatic, immediate response that initiates motor and autonomic activity and prepares us for possible action," subsequently triggering a cognitive process that can facilitate listeners' identification of the experienced emotion. This sequence of events dynamically interacts with novel incoming information. Robinson further proposes that emotions can transmute, leading to complex blends and conflicts among experienced affective states; thus, internal feelings are more accurately conceptualized as outcomes of multiple emotional currents rather than discrete emotional states. During musical engagement, the emotional interpretations of various musical elements may either reinforce or contradict one another as the brain processes new information, thereby influencing an individual's holistic perception of the emotion conveyed by a musical composition.
Theory of Musical Equilibration
The theory of musical equilibration proposes that music, instead of possessing an intrinsic emotional character, prompts listeners to connect with messages frequently linked to specific emotions. For instance, a minor chord might communicate the message no more, which a listener subsequently interprets as a sensation of sadness.
BRECVEM Model
Juslin and Västfjäll formulated the BRECVEM model, which delineates seven distinct mechanisms through which music can evoke emotion.
- Brain Stem Reflex: Emotion is elicited when the brain stem interprets one or more fundamental acoustic properties of music as indicative of a potentially significant and urgent event. This mechanism is particularly relevant for sudden, loud, and dissonant musical passages that provoke physiological arousal.
- Rhythmic Entrainment: The rhythmic structure of a musical composition impacts a listener's internal physiological rhythms, such as heart rate, which subsequently influences other emotional constituents.
- Evaluative Conditioning: Emotion is evoked when musical stimuli have been consistently associated with positive or negative external stimuli, thereby conditioning the listener to link that specific positive or negative emotion directly with the music.
- Emotional Contagion: A listener apprehends the emotional expression conveyed by a musical piece, leading to the direct experience of that perceived emotion.
- Visual Imagery: A listener generates visual mental representations stimulated by the music, which subsequently elicits an emotional response.
- Episodic Memory: Emotion is triggered when music prompts the listener to recall an emotional memory. This phenomenon is occasionally termed the 'Darling, they are playing our tune' effect.
- Musical Expectancy: Emotion is generated in a listener when a musical characteristic, such as rhythm or harmony, either violates, delays, or confirms their established expectations.
In 2013, Juslin augmented the BRECVEM model by introducing the concept of aesthetic judgment, which quantifies an individual's evaluation of a musical composition's aesthetic merit. This aesthetic judgment encompasses diverse personal preferences, including the conveyed message, the demonstrated skill, or the originality of the style or concept.
Framework for Adaptable Musical Emotions
Susino and collaborators devised the Framework for Adaptable Musical Emotions (FAME), which elucidates emotional reactions to music by positing a mechanism of temporal adaptability. This framework proposes that musical emotional responses develop adaptively, integrating a broad spectrum of cues derived from psychophysical, cultural, and personal factors that interact with specific situational contexts. Such emotional adaptability is instrumental in explaining and forecasting both the commonalities and variations in musical emotional responses among individuals and cultures over extended periods.
Specific Factors Influencing Emotional Responses
The holistic emotional perception of a musical composition is shaped by the interplay of numerous elements, such as its structural characteristics, performance nuances, listener demographics, and contextual factors.
Structural Features
Structural features pertain to inherent attributes of a musical composition, independent of its execution, audience, or other contextual elements. These features are categorized into two types: Segmental features encompass the discrete sounds or tones constituting the music, including duration, amplitude, and pitch. Conversely, suprasegmental features represent the fundamental organizational elements of a piece, such as melody, tempo, and rhythm. A range of specific musical characteristics exhibit strong correlations with distinct emotional states. Among the determinants of emotional expression in music, tempo is generally considered paramount, although other factors like mode, loudness, and melody also significantly impact the emotional valence of a composition.
Harmony
Music composed in a major key is typically associated with positive emotional valence, whereas minor-key compositions are generally perceived as possessing negative emotional valence; this correlation has been observed since at least 1935. The theory of musical equilibration posits that the inherent quality of tonic triads, the variability within the minor scale, and the inherent instability of accidentals and leading tones in minor keys contribute to their characteristic somber sonic quality. Major and minor chords exhibit emotional parallels with their corresponding keys; major triads generally evoke elevated levels of valence, energy, and happiness, alongside reduced melancholy, nostalgia, and tension, when contrasted with minor triads. Furthermore, listeners often perceive minor triads as more dissonant, a characteristic frequently associated with the elicitation of negative emotions.
The harmonic progression within a musical composition can also profoundly influence emotional states. For instance, a significant disparity in surprise and unpredictability associated with the final chord of a four-chord progression, relative to the preceding three, correlates with heightened physical sensations in the head, suggesting an emotional reaction stemming from the subversion of harmonic expectations. Conversely, a progression that resolves from a dissonant chord to a more consonant one can induce a palpable tension-and-release experience in the audience.
Pitch
Musical compositions exhibiting greater pitch variation are correlated with elevated levels of listener arousal.
Tempo and Duration
Music performed at a faster tempo is linked to increased listener arousal and marginally higher valence. Furthermore, compositions with a rapid tempo are often perceived as having a greater duration than pieces of equivalent actual length played at a slower tempo.
Volume and Dynamics
Increased musical volume correlates with heightened arousal levels in listeners.
Articulation and Rhythm
Legato musical passages are often perceived as cohesive, tranquil, melancholic, and unsettling, in contrast to staccato music, which is typically characterized as more tense, energetic, entertaining, and surprising. Within the minor mode, staccato melodies are generally considered to evoke more positive emotions than their legato counterparts. Additionally, certain rhythmic patterns can induce feelings of restlessness and an inability to remain sedentary in many individuals.
Lyrics
Instrumental music is generally less likely to evoke complex social emotions such as anger, shame, or jealousy, primarily eliciting more fundamental emotions like happiness and sadness.
Performance Features
Performance characteristics delineate the execution style of a musical composition by its performer(s). These characteristics are categorized into two primary domains: performer skills and performer state. Performer skills encompass the performer's comprehensive capabilities and presentation, including physical appearance, professional reputation, and technical proficiency. The performer's state involves their interpretive approach, motivational drive, and stage presence. The overt expression of emotions during a performance can enhance the audience's comprehension of the music's underlying meaning. Furthermore, listeners' emotional perceptions of music often align with the performer's emotional expression, even when this contradicts their typical interpretation. For instance, a listener might perceive a minor-key composition, usually associated with sadness, as joyful if the performer exhibits a happy demeanor.
Listener Characteristics
Listener characteristics pertain to the individual and social identities of the audience members. These attributes encompass personality traits, age, gender, musical knowledge, sociocultural context, and listening motivation. Generally, emotional perceptions of music exhibit minimal variation between musical novices and experts within Western cultural contexts. Conversely, children typically favor music that is more arousing, whereas adults often show a preference for more positive musical content. Research indicates that among Chinese listeners, males frequently express a preference for melancholic music. An individual's emotional perception of a musical piece is also significantly influenced by their prevailing emotional state during the listening experience. Furthermore, emotional perception correlates with personality traits: individuals exhibiting higher neuroticism often report more intense sad reactions, while those with greater agreeableness tend to experience stronger emotional responses overall.
Extramusical Attributes
Extramusical attributes denote information external to the auditory musical signal itself, including elements like genre or stylistic classification.
Contradictory Cues
Emotional factors frequently exhibit complex interactions. For instance, mixed-cue music incorporates two concurrent musical signals linked to opposing emotions, such as a major key typically associated with happiness combined with a slow tempo often linked to sadness. Historically, research posited that contrasting emotions, such as happiness and sadness, exist on a bipolar continuum, precluding their simultaneous experience. However, more recent scientific inquiry suggests that happiness and sadness are processed independently, thereby allowing for their concurrent perception. For example, listeners exposed to mixed-cue music designed to evoke both happiness and sadness often report experiencing both emotions simultaneously, though typically at a reduced intensity compared to music with non-conflicting cues.
Emotional Elicitation
Music possesses the capacity to both communicate and evoke emotional states in its audience. This perspective frequently generates scholarly debate, primarily because the emotional experience originates internally within the listener, rendering its objective measurement challenging. Cognitivists contend that music merely represents an emotion, rather than facilitating a genuine personal emotional experience for the listener. Conversely, emotivists assert that music genuinely induces authentic emotional responses within the listener. Despite this ongoing controversy, contemporary research indicates that music is indeed capable of eliciting emotions in listeners. For instance, exposure to music categorized as happy or sad typically leads listeners to report corresponding increases in happiness or sadness. Furthermore, music can engage empathetic processes, thereby inducing emotions presumed to be experienced by the performer or composer. Beyond influencing the subjective experience of emotion, music can also impact the reactive constituents of emotion, including physiological responses, motoric expressions, and overt physical movements.
The experiential context of music significantly influences individual responses. Beyond intrinsic musical elements such as harmony and rhythm, both physical and social environments play a crucial role in the elicitation of emotional reactions. Contemporary studies demonstrate that live musical performances typically elicit more robust emotional and physiological responses compared to recorded versions of identical compositions. One recent investigation employed motion capture technology to quantify audience reactions to both live and recorded renditions of the same musical performances. The findings indicated that audience members exhibited more active head movements and superior rhythmic synchronization with the music during live performances. Notably, fans of the performing artist displayed more pronounced reactions, suggesting that personal affinity and collective audience engagement can intensify the overall experience.
Music also influences socially salient memories, particularly those associated with nostalgic musical passages. While all familiar music elicits heightened emotional reactions, specific brain regions exhibit more pronounced processing of musical structures when nostalgia is evoked by the music, such as the interior frontal gyrus, substantia nigra, cerebellum, and insular cortex. Given that music is processed at lower, sensory brain levels, rendering it resistant to subsequent memory distortions, a familiar musical excerpt can activate emotional memories that might otherwise be difficult to retrieve.
Measurement
Self-report
The self-report methodology involves listeners providing verbal or written accounts of their subjective experiences. This approach is the predominant method for investigating emotion and has demonstrated that individuals both identify and personally experience emotions during musical engagement. Standardized instruments, such as the Geneva Emotional Music Scale, are commonly employed to quantify reported emotional states. Nevertheless, self-report measures remain susceptible to biases, including social desirability bias.
Physiological responses
Emotional states are recognized to induce physiological alterations within an individual, which are amenable to experimental investigation. For instance, stimulating music correlates with elevated heart rate and muscle tension, whereas tranquil music is associated with reduced heart rate, diminished muscle tension, and heightened skin temperature. Investigators assess these responses using instruments designed for physiological measurement, such as devices for recording pulse rate.
Research employing rhythmic and predictive frameworks indicates that music entrains neural timing mechanisms, thereby influencing attention, expectation, and physiological regulatory processes. Such entrainment effects contribute to understanding how music can modulate arousal levels, mitigate stress, and re-establish autonomic equilibrium.
The intensity and spectral characteristics of music additionally influence listeners' physiological reactions. Specifically, amplified bass frequencies have been observed to enhance physiological engagement, augment bodily synchronization with rhythmic patterns, and intensify subjective emotional experiences. These observations suggest that music impacts not only emotional states but also cardiophysiological and sensorimotor systems.
Expressive behavior
Individuals are also observed to exhibit overt manifestations of their emotional states during musical engagement. Research employing facial electromyography (EMG) has revealed that individuals respond with subliminal facial expressions when exposed to expressive music. Harmonic shifts can induce overt physical reactions like shivering or piloerection, whereas melodic alterations often provoke lacrimation and a globus sensation. Furthermore, music serves as a potent stimulus for expressive behavior across numerous social contexts, including concerts, dances, and ceremonial events.
Strength of effects
Ratings for emotional elicitation and perception in music exhibit a strong correlation, yet they are not identical. Specific musical cues exert distinct effects and varying intensities of influence on perceived emotions compared to felt emotions. Generally, emotions are less frequently conveyed by music than they are elicited; however, when conveyed, they tend to be more intense than elicited emotions. The intensity of both perceived and elicited emotions is contingent upon the structural characteristics of the musical composition: Perceived emotions demonstrate greater intensity than elicited emotions in the context of arousing, positive, and negative music, whereas elicited emotions surpass perceived emotions in intensity for pleasant music. Furthermore, perceived emotions exhibit greater consistency than elicited emotions.
Music as a therapeutic tool
Music therapy, employed as a therapeutic modality, has demonstrated efficacy in treating a range of ailments. Therapeutic interventions encompass the elicitation of emotions through music listening, the composition of musical pieces or lyrics, and musical performance.
Music therapy sessions can assist individuals undergoing substance withdrawal by facilitating emotional processing independent of drug use. Moreover, it provides an avenue for emotional expression, especially beneficial for autistic individuals. Additionally, music therapy may support patients enduring prolonged hospitalizations due to illness.
Music and emotion regulation
Music functions extensively as a mechanism for emotional self-regulation, particularly during episodes of stress or significant psychological difficulty. Academic investigations indicate that individuals commonly employ music to stabilize affective states, mitigate anxiety, and process profound emotional experiences. These outcomes are evident in both routine listening contexts and formalized therapeutic settings. Music characterized by somber tonality or slow tempos does not consistently elicit sadness; rather, listeners frequently articulate sensations of solace, reminiscence, or catharsis. Such experiences are posited to originate from autobiographical introspection and aesthetic discernment, rather than direct emotional transmission. Consequently, music can establish a secure emotional domain for the exploration and transformation of intricate emotions.
The objective involves facilitating an individual's progression from a general appreciation of music to the state of melomania, characterized by the intuitive application of music to enhance emotional well-being. This transition transcends adherence to prescriptive guidelines, emphasizing instead an immersive engagement with melodies that permits uninhibited emotional processing, thereby transforming passive listening into a profound, concentrated experience conducive to genuine well-being.
Nevertheless, it is crucial to differentiate this phenomenon from conditions approaching pathological obsession, such as musomania. Whereas healthy melomania represents a process of organic exploration and liberation, an unmanageable fixation can manifest as an artificially induced euphoria, potentially akin to the effects of psychoactive substances. Authentic melomania fosters mental emancipation rather than imposing cognitive strain.
- Gabrielsson, Alf (2011). Profound Musical Experiences: Music Transcends Mere Sound. Oxford University Press.
- Juslin, Patrik N., and John Sloboda, eds (2011). The Handbook of Music and Emotion: Theory, Research, and Practical Applications. Oxford University Press.
- Nussbaum, Martha C. (2001). "Music and Emotion". Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 249–294. ISBN 978-0-511-84071-5.Willimek, Daniela; Willimek, Bernd (2013). "Abstract: 'Music and Emotions — Research on the Theory of Musical Equilibration (die Strebetendenz-Theorie)'". EUNOMIOS.Willimek, Daniela; Willimek, Bernd (2013). Music and Emotions — Research on the Theory of Musical Equilibration (die Strebetendenz-Theorie) (PDF).