Chapter Three
How Does Music Affect Emotion?
Emotions in response to aesthetic stimuli are seen to be one of the more complex and therefore mis-interpreted occurrences in psychology. As a result, many times emotions occurring from music have been labelled as “pseudo emotions”, which suggests that any emotion elicited from music is not as valid or real as ones stimulated by situational experiences(10).
Following during experiences where we are subject to everyday emotions, it is usually quite clear to us which scenarios or specific actions of others have induced which emotional response in us; someone tells a joke, we feel joy and humour, or the irony, and we laugh responsively. However, feelings which are initiated by music, and the sounds themselves are more difficult to associate with each other with as much precision, due to the causal link potentially not being so direct and immediate, and also environmental and individual differences. The exact cause and response of emotion during music is therefore more subjective than the relative objectivity of the everyday emotional experiences(11).
According to a variety of experiments, listening studies, surveys and diary analyses conducted for example by: Pike(12), Gabrielsson(13), Juslin(14), and DeNora(15), listeners from all accounts report that at least some of the time they experienced some form of emotional feeling during the course of hearing music. Griffiths suggests that people from such a wide variety of studies and the wide variety of types of data collection cannot all be mistaken about their own emotion(16). However, contrastingly, Orne suggests that it is possible that people listen to music and succumb to certain demand characteristics and feel an expectation from the researcher for them to give a particular answer, or that it is possible listeners confuse the emotions contained in the music with their own emotions(17).
This is a concern also shared by others, and a question which could be raised, is one of how can music be expressive of any emotion, when it is not a living sentient being itself. Particularly within instrumental music, where there is no text and narrative to be directly correlated with each moment of the piece, it can also be questioned how strong a response may be induced from an audience where this is the case(18).
Bennett offers an answer to this question, stating that music is a “unity of physical sounds, and centripetal movement gives rise to the definition the music is design, more or less beautiful, manifested in sound.” However, the form of music must not be an arbitrary one since physiological emotional reactions are consistently produced within us in response to stimuli, however, music in terms of the emotions it produces is simply an imitation of an environment or scenario, much as a painting is an imitation of the thing it tries to represent. This suggests that to have this consistency of reaction to an imitation of a thing, there must be an underlying understanding of form which we all share, in order to have a shared emotional experience(19). This underlying understanding I shall come to discuss further in the course of this discussion.
Bennett, being of the view that music is able to imitate emotion, and the form of the music follows from the emotion it attempts to convey, which in turn causes an emotional response inlisteners, notes that the emotions experienced by the hearer may not always correlate with the ones the music intended. He believes that music and the listening of it is an “exercise for the soul”, however the higher purpose of it allows us insight and contemplation of truth and beauty. Music has both intellectual and emotional content, and the emotional features in the music are strong enough to also carry the meaning of the intellectual content, and producing an even stronger emotional response as a result(20).
So far, it has been speculated whether music can hold and convey emotions at all, and if it does, if they are real emotions or simply recognitions or imitations of the real thing. However, more recent studies have suggested and contributed to evidence that emotions in music can be genuine.
Bradley and Lang conducted a study into the facial expressions which were indicative of our emotional reactions to both musical and natural acoustic stimuli. Participants were presented with sixty musical and non- musical sounds including birds singing, a baby crying, and a dog barking. Upon comparison of the data, results showed that both sets of acoustic stimuli produced identical patterns in responsive facial expressions. Having this direct comparison between the two stimuli, and the results showing that our reactions to intentional musical structures and communicative sounds from animals are outwardly expressed in the same way suggests that the physiologically and neurologically, the functions and areas of the brain used to process the two types of sounds overlap, or could be the same. This then holds impact for the value we place on musics’ communicative ability; if non- musical sounds used in nature for communication produce within us similar response patterns for us to that of music, this is suggestive of both music being able to replicate sounds which are communicative, but also that we are able to be receptive to this and react instinctively with the desired response. Therefore, music can be seen as being capable of holding expression, but importantly also means that music can be emotive and create emotions within us. However, as the responses were found to be comparable in both musical and natural sounds, it raises questions about the nature in which we listen to music, and what in the meaning of the passages we are actually responding and reacting to(21). This is a question I will come to discuss this further.
Concurrently with this study, measurable displays of our emotions come from our behaviour and expressivity, namely, facial expressions or outward vocalisations. It has been observed by electromyographic tests conducted by Witvliet and Vrana, that people upon listening to music, can respond by crying, laughing, smiling, or creasing their forehead(22). These responses can also be observed in public settings where music is being played or performed. Frey found that crying is one of the most common reactions to music, and a strong indicator of felt emotion(23). Slobada is in concurrence with the view that outward reactions are a strong indicator of internalemotion, as ‘it is very difficult to be mistaken about whether you cried or not to a piece of music’(24).
Additionally, Juslin conducted a study involving over 700 participants who were surveyed about their emotional experiences during musical listening. There was no set list of terms attributing to emotions who could have influenced the responses, instead, respondents were free to be descriptive in their own terms. From the results of this study, several important trends were exposed. However, in contrast with Frey 1985, Juslin concluded that positive emotions accounted for 84% of emotional states, and negative feelings were experienced significantly less. Interestingly to note, 89% of emotional episodes described were single- state emotions; again most commonly happiness and sadness, however, 11% of states described were mixed emotions. Of the mixed emotional state categories experienced, the most commonly felt were: happy/ elated, sad/ melancholic, calm/ content, nostalgic/ longing, and aroused/ alert. From this key study, findings suggest that it is possible to experience a broad range of emotions, ranging from physiological arousal, chills, basic emotions, to more complex and compound emotions(25).
In accordance with Juslin’s and Frey’s observations, Slobada also found similar results. Of the 76 participants who were being studied as to their musical emotional reactions, 96.2% stated they felt sadness, and 93.4% reported feelings of happiness, making these two emotional states the most commonly experienced ones in response to musical listening.
Whilst happiness and sadness might be the most common affective states produced by music, many recent studies have reported a large range of commonly experienced emotions produced by music, including those of joy, calmness, love, sadness, hopefulness, excitement, and nostalgia(27,28,29).
Furthermore, some researchers such as Swannick 1985, have even claimed that music may be capable of stimulating unique emotions which are found solely to be aroused by music, and “life” and “musical” emotions are not the same(30). There is so far however, no statistical or empirical evidence for this, but has been suggested that music can arouse states of awe, or wonder(31).
Despite then, music potentially not instigating unique emotions, the amount of emotions experienced over the duration of music listening in comparison to day- to- day life could be significant. Juslin compared the emotional prevalence of emotions during both listening to music, and in normal day- to- day life.The overarching findings suggested that feelings of calm- content, and happy- elated, were the most commonly experienced emotions in both musical and non- musical settings, whilst in both situations shame, guilt and disgust wereexperienced least recurrently. Additionally, positive emotional valence or “liking” was more frequently felt than a negative one in both situations; people are more generally happy than not. However, where the differences lie, is in the duration of episodes of music listening, positive emotions were more frequently initiated during a given time frame, than without music(32). Therefore, it can be suggested that perhaps the emotions felt during music listening, although not unique in this instance, are balanced more towards feeling more positive emotions, and more frequently felt than in general life.
From this discussion, we can see that in the past, there was the conception that emotions expressed by music were synonymous with those actually felt by the listener, however, this has been proven to not be the case, and musical emotions are not necessarily indicative of personal emotions. Musical emotional expression can and often does elicit differing emotions from that expressed in the music, and can also differ from individual to individual, and in the same individual in different situations. It is possible that the listener responds with a contrasting or even opposing emotion to that expressed by the music, for example, a person could hear a piece of music, but due to memories associated with it they feel sadness due to evoked memory and emotion(33).
In any case, studies have shown on many occasions that real emotions are experienced due to the effects of music, so following this, what functions and mechanisms does music contain to be expressive to us? And what functions and systems do we possess to be able to be receptive to musical emotional triggers, and knowingly create music with the intent of inducing emotion?
10- Juslin, Slobada, 2010
11- Balz, 1914
12- Pike, 1972
13- Gabrielsson, 2001
14- Juslin, 2008
15- DeNora, 2000
16- Griffiths, 1997
17- Orne, 1962
18- Juslin, Slobada, 2010
19- Bennett, 1942
20- Bennett, 1942
21- Bradley, Lang, 2000
22- Witvliet, Vrana, 2007
23- Frey, 1985
24- Slobada, 1992
25- Juslin, 2009
26- Slobada, 1992
27- Juslin 2004
28- Zentner, 2008
29- Wells, 1991
30- Swanick, 1985
31- Juslin, Slobada, 2010
32- Juslin, 2008
33- Gabrielsson, 2002