Expression of Emotion in Eastern and Western Music Mirrors Vocalization

Bowling, Daniel L.; Sundararajan, Janani; Han, Shui’Er; Purves, Dale

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031942

Cited by 83 publications

(117 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Second, the correlations between emotional ratings for the musical selections and a linearly weighted average of corresponding emotional ratings for the colors chosen to go best/worst with the music were remarkably high: happy/sad (+0.97), lively/dreary (+0.99), strong/weak (+0.96), and angry/ calm (+0.89). Third, all of the previously mentioned results were essentially the same for participant samples in the United States and Mexico, as expected given prior results that color-emotion (24) and music-emotion associations may well be universal (29,30). It is as yet unclear whether similar results will be evident in cultures that use nonwestern musical scales and structures.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Music–color associations are mediated by emotion

Palmer

Schloss

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

310

291

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Experimental evidence demonstrates robust cross-modal matches between music and colors that are mediated by emotional associations. US and Mexican participants chose colors that were most/least consistent with 18 selections of classical orchestral music by Bach, Mozart, and Brahms. In both cultures, faster music in the major mode produced color choices that were more saturated, lighter, and yellower whereas slower, minor music produced the opposite pattern (choices that were desaturated, darker, and bluer). There were strong correlations (0.89 < r < 0.99) between the emotional associations of the music and those of the colors chosen to go with the music, supporting an emotional mediation hypothesis in both cultures. Additional experiments showed similarly robust cross-modal matches from emotionally expressive faces to colors and from music to emotionally expressive faces. These results provide further support that music-to-color associations are mediated by common emotional associations.color cognition | cross-modal associations | music cognition | emotion mediation hypothesis R esearchers have attempted to identify systematic links between music and color. Perhaps the most direct connection comes from the fascinating phenomenon of music-color synesthesia (1-4). A small minority of individuals, including some distinguished artists (e.g., Kandinsky and Klee) and musicians (e.g., Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsokov) report diverse cross-modal experiences of color while hearing musical sounds (1). Scientific studies initially failed to establish general correspondences because synesthetic sound-to-color mappings appeared idiosyncratic (3).Nonsynesthetic people also have music-to-color associations but do not actually experience colors while hearing music. Relatively low-level sound-to-color associations-e.g., higher pitches being associated with lighter colors (2, 5-7)-appear to hold for both synesthetes and nonsynesthetes (1). Reliable pitch-hue associations have been reported in children (8) although these effects were probably due to lightness, where spectral yellow and green (lightest) were associated with higher pitches, red and orange (midlightness) with midlevel pitches, and blue and violet (darkest) with lower pitches. There is evidence for other low-level auditory-visual associations such as timbre-saturation (9), loudness-brightness (7), and pitch-size (10, 11) [Spence (12)].Other studies have investigated music-color correspondences at a higher level. Bresin found that music in the major mode was associated with lighter colors than music in the minor mode (13), but only two melodies were studied. Sebba reported that students used warmer, more saturated, lighter, and more highly contrasting colors in creating images while listening to a major Mozart selection than did students listening to a minor Albinoni selection (14). Again, only two musical selections were used, and students chose the musical selections rather than being randomly assigned, so students who are more inclined to choose major music may merely b...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Music–color associations are mediated by emotion

Palmer

Schloss

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

310

291

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“…The musical protolanguage hypothesis is supported by recent evidence that speech and music share underlying cognitive and neural resources (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22), and draw on a common code of acoustic attributes when used to communicate emotional states (23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31). In their review of emotional expression in speech and music, Juslin and Laukka found that higher pitch, increased intensity, and faster rate were associated with more excited and positive emotions in both speech and music (23).…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Human emotions track changes in the acoustic environment

Thompson

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Emotional responses to biologically significant events are essential for human survival. Do human emotions lawfully track changes in the acoustic environment? Here we report that changes in acoustic attributes that are well known to interact with human emotions in speech and music also trigger systematic emotional responses when they occur in environmental sounds, including sounds of human actions, animal calls, machinery, or natural phenomena, such as wind and rain. Three changes in acoustic attributes known to signal emotional states in speech and music were imposed upon 24 environmental sounds. Evaluations of stimuli indicated that human emotions track such changes in environmental sounds just as they do for speech and music. Such changes not only influenced evaluations of the sounds themselves, they also affected the way accompanying facial expressions were interpreted emotionally. The findings illustrate that human emotions are highly attuned to changes in the acoustic environment, and reignite a discussion of Charles Darwin’s hypothesis that speech and music originated from a common emotional signal system based on the imitation and modification of environmental sounds.

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“…Their results are that there are significantly more semitone intervals in the "negative/subdued" raga melodies, making a correlation between these results and scales with flattened pitch degrees. This study highlights the prevalence of the ♭6 in the "negative/subdued" raga melodies, rather than the ♭3 in their comparative American study, concluding that "the use of a particular tonic interval(s) is not critical for the expression of emotion" (Bowling et al, 2012). So, put alongside Huron and Empirical Musicology Review Vol.…”

Section: Empirical Evidence Within South Indian Musicmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…The two "positive/excited" ragas are based on notes equivalent to the major scale, and the three "negative/subdued" ragas all have ♭2 and ♭6, together (in two cases) with other "altered" notes. Bowling et al (2012) find the principal difference to be the proportion of intervals smaller or larger than a major second. Their results are that there are significantly more semitone intervals in the "negative/subdued" raga melodies, making a correlation between these results and scales with flattened pitch degrees.…”

Section: Empirical Evidence Within South Indian Musicmentioning

confidence: 87%

Interval Size and Affect: An Ethnomusicological Perspective

Moore

2013

EMR

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This commentary addresses Huron and Davis's question of whether "The Harmonic Minor Provides an Optimum Way of Reducing Average Melodic Interval Size, Consistent with Sad Affect Cues" within any non-Western musical cultures. The harmonic minor scale and other semitone-heavy scales, such as Bhairav raga and Hicaz makam, are featured widely in the musical cultures of North India and the Middle East. Do melodies from these genres also have a preponderance of semitone intervals and low incidence of the augmented second interval, as in Huron and Davis's sample? Does the presence of more semitone intervals in a melody affect its emotional connotations in different cultural settings? Are all semitone intervals equal in their effect? My own ethnographic research within these cultures reveals comparable connotations in melodies that linger on semitone intervals, centered on concepts of tension and metaphors of falling. However, across different musical cultures there may also be neutral or lively interpretations of these same pitch sets, dependent on context, manner of performance, and tradition. Small pitch movement may also be associated with social functions such as prayer or lullabies, and may not be described as "sad." "Sad," moreover may not connote the same affect cross-culturally. HURON and Davis's article states that major scale melodies, on having their third and sixth degrees flattened, contain smaller intervals on average, and that if small pitch movement connotes "sadness," then altering a standard major melody to the harmonic minor is "among the very best pitch-related transformations that can be done to modify a major-mode melody in order to render a sad affect" (p. 105, 114). I look forward to the testing of this hypothesis, playing these pieces to "major-scale enculturated" listeners to find out their opinions.Although Huron and Davis's study is focused on the Western-enculturated listener, I am addressing their interest in extending this study to cross-cultural situations (p. 103, 114). Empirical Musicology Review has an established history of interdisciplinary discussion between music psychology and ethnomusicology, as in vol. 2, no. 4 where Martin Clayton and John Baily discuss how the beginnings of Ethnomusicology's predecessor, Comparative Musicology, were in the Institute of Psychology in Berlin. Clayton argues that both disciplines are "inherently interdisciplinary" (Clayton, 2009, p. 75); while Baily states that he has used what he knows of psychology to "understand more about processes of music cognition" within his work in Afghanistan-also suggesting that music psychologists might "change the parameters slightly" to include cross-cultural samples (Baily, 2009, p. 86).Cognitive psychology studies are generally conducted within a Western setting, and Huron and Davis are at pains to point out that in some cultures there are no particularly "sad" associations to the harmonic minor scale (p. 104). People who have not been "Western-enculturated" in their listening habits as children may hav...

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Expression of Emotion in Eastern and Western Music Mirrors Vocalization

Cited by 83 publications

References 14 publications

Music–color associations are mediated by emotion

Music–color associations are mediated by emotion

Human emotions track changes in the acoustic environment

Interval Size and Affect: An Ethnomusicological Perspective

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