Cues and Signals: An Ethological Approach to Music-Related Emotion

Huron, David

doi:10.4000/signata.1115

Cited by 17 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Recent research is consistent with the idea that musical sadness may be a synthesis of (at least) two distinctive affective states: melancholy and grief (Huron, 2015, 2016; Warrenburg, 2020b). The distinction between melancholy and grief dates back to Darwin (1872), who suggested that these emotions may have separate motivations and physiological characteristics.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…Experiences of grief often occur after a person suffers a significant loss, such as the death of a loved one, the end of a close personal relationship, or the loss of trust, safety, autonomy, or an identity (Archer, 1999; Epstein, 2019). Feelings of grief tend to be negatively valenced and are often associated with high physiological arousal (Andrews & Thomson, 2009; Darwin, 1872; Huron, 2016; Urban, 1988; Vingerhoets & Cornelius, 2012). Behaviors such as crying and wailing are often associated with experiences of grief (Frick, 1985; Gelstein et al, 2011; Mazo, 1994; Rosenblatt et al, 1976; Urban, 1988; Vingerhoets & Cornelius, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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People Experience Different Emotions from Melancholic and Grieving Music

Warrenburg

2020

Music & Science

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Two behavioral studies are reported that ask whether listeners experience different emotions in response to melancholic and grieving musical passages. In the first study, listeners were asked to rate the extent that musical passages made them feel positive and negative, as well as to identify which emotion(s) they felt from a list of 24 emotions. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that listeners experience different emotions when listening to melancholic and grieving music. The second study asked listeners to spontaneously describe their emotional states while listening to music. Content analysis was conducted in order to find any underlying dimensions of the identified responses. The analysis replicated the finding that melancholic and grieving music led to different feelings states, with melancholic music leading to feelings of Sad/Melancholy/Depressed, Reflective/Nostalgic, Rain/Dreary Weather, and Relaxed/Calm, while grieving music led to feelings of Anticipation/Uneasy, Tension/Intensity, Crying/Distraught/Turmoil, Death/Loss, and Epic/Dramatic/Cinematic.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

People Experience Different Emotions from Melancholic and Grieving Music

Warrenburg

2020

Music & Science

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“…It is all the more remarkable that Sun and Cuthbert found such correlations in a corpus of popular songs, composed by people who in general will not be aware of the theories and practices concerning word painting preceding Hanslick (1854Hanslick ( /2008. This indicates that these practices are either closely related to the way our speech prosody and our body language reflect our emotions (see Huron, 2015), or that they are deeply rooted in our musical culture. Therefore, it seems fruitful to investigate this kind of correlation further.…”

Section: Words and Tones: A Few Thoughts On Textsettingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing Word Affect and Tone Affect: Comment on Sun and Cuthbert 2017

Schotanus

2020

EMR

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In the article "Emotion Painting: Lyric, affect, and musical relationships in a large lead-sheet corpus", Sun and Cuthbert (2017) explored the correlations between affect-carrying lyrics and musical features such as beat strength, pitch height, consonance, and mode. Several musical features did indeed turn out to be highly correlated with the affect of the lyrics. However, correlations between other features, particularly mode-related musical features and lyric affect, were either insignificant or even contradicted previous research. In the current commentary, it is argued that the difference between the musical features that show significant correlations and those that do not is that the former have a local musical effect whereas the latter tend to affect the mood of a whole phrase or piece, and that the way Sun and Cuthbert estimate lyric affect for sentences or song may not be appropriate. Furthermore, a few remarks are made about the way Sun and Cuthbert treat multi-syllable words and about some basic assumptions concerning the relation between music and lyrics in a song. Nevertheless, the authors are praised for their innovative and interesting work, while several alternative and additional analyses (for example with scale-degree qualia and syncopations) are proposed.

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“…The suggestion that the higher string register could be utilized expressively may be connected to a common vocal affective behavior or human ethological signal. Ethological signals are behaviors intended to communicate with a fellow member of one's species and inspire a specific response (Huron, 2015). For humans, ethological signals aim to be conspicuous and so tend to be multimodal-typically including both distinct auditory and visual components (i.e.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…laughter, crying, or screaming) (Ohala, 1996). Musicians might communicate emotionality by mimicking vocal ethological signals with their expressive musical decisions (Huron, 2015;Huron & Trevor, 2016;Juslin & Laukka, 2003). Perhaps the use of string register expressively is an example of this practice.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Musicians can reliably discriminate between string register locations on the violoncello

Trevor¹,

Devaney²,

Huron³

2020

Preprint

Self Cite

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Classical string players must decide how to finger musical passages–decide which fingers should play each note and where on the fingerboard. String pedagogues agree that fingerings should be guided by two priorities–musicality and facility–with musicality taking precedence. However, how musicality considerations impact fingering decisions is not always clear. Some advice suggests that playing higher up the fingerboard (approaching the bridge) on a lower string can yield a more emotional sound than playing lower on the fingerboard (closer to the scroll) on a higher string. Research in emotional speech offers a possible explanation. When highly emotional, people often speak higher in their vocal range. Moving up higher on the fingerboard on a lower string (and therefore playing in the upper register of that string) might mimic this vocal emotional communication practice thereby conveying a higher emotionality. Three studies test the conjectured effect. The first investigates whether listeners can reliably distinguish between high and low fingerboard playing. The second tests the hypothesis that melodies played higher up the fingerboard are perceived as more emotionally intense. The third examines how fingerboard location affects acoustic features. The results dispute the common pedagogical assumption that expressive vocal practices translate to instrumental performance.

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Cues and Signals: An Ethological Approach to Music-Related Emotion

Cited by 17 publications

References 33 publications

People Experience Different Emotions from Melancholic and Grieving Music

People Experience Different Emotions from Melancholic and Grieving Music

Comparing Word Affect and Tone Affect: Comment on Sun and Cuthbert 2017

Musicians can reliably discriminate between string register locations on the violoncello

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