Relationships between expressed and felt emotions in music

Abstract

This study examines empirically the possible relationships between the emotional quality one can attribute to musical stimuli (expressed emotion, or external locus of emotion) and the subjective emotional response one can have as a result of listening to music (felt emotion, or internal locus). The relationship between the two loci of emotion is often assumed to be positive, that is, when listening to music, one feels the emotion that the music expresses. Gabrielsson has suggested, however, that this assumption is simplistic, and has proposed a model that describes other possible relationships. The present study quantitatively investigates Gabrielsson's proposal. Forty-five participants responded to questions about both expressed emotion and felt emotion for two familiar experimenter-selected pieces (Pachelbel's Canon and Advance Australia Fair, the Australian national anthem) and one or two pieces of their own selection. Participants were asked to “imagine” their self-selected pieces in the absence of recordings or a live performance. An experimenter-selected piece was both sounded and imagined, and no significant difference was observed in responses between the two conditions. Quantitative criteria were generated in order to compare the loci (internal and external) of each piece in geometric space. Results showed that the positive relationship, where the internal and external locus emotions are the same, occurred in 61% of cases. In general, these pieces were preferred more than those exhibiting non-positive relationships. Implications for practices that tacitly assume a 100% positive relationship, or are not specific about the locus of emotion, are discussed.

Are the Emotions Expressed in Music Genre-specific? An Audio-based Evaluation of Datasets Spanning Classical, Film, Pop and Mixed Genres

“…perceived emotions), but whether or not it induces those emotions in a listener (induced emotions) is another matter. Sometimes the emotion induced is the same as that perceived, as these two processes bear some resemblance to each other (Evans & Schubert, 2008;Vieillard et al, 2008), but this is not always the case. In terms of computational modelling, the emotions perceived in music provide a better object of modelling, since they rely more on the musical features than an individual's felt experiences (induced emotions), which are prone to subjective associations and contextual effects (Gabrielsson, 2002;Juslin & Va¨stfja¨ll, 2008).…”

Emotional Responses to Multisensory Environmental Stimuli

“…The internal assessment, however, can result in an emotional experience that is evoked in the observer himself or herself by the percept (e.g., "I feel sad, angry"). The separation of these perspectives is essential as the perception of emotional qualities is not necessarily accompanied by a consciously perceived or objectively assessable emotional change or (physiological) reaction in the observer (Evans & Schubert, 2008;Gabrielsson, 2002;Kallinen & Ravaja, 2006;Russell & Snodgrass, 1987). Although it was found that for instance music-induced experienced emotions and perceived emotions in response to happy and sad music are highly correlated, it is not clear whether this also holds for emotions induced by stimuli originating from other sensory domains (Konecni, 2008;Scherer, 2004;Zentner, Grandjean, & Scherer, 2008).…”

An integrative review of the enjoyment of sadness associated with music

“…The actual experiences induced by music expressing sadness, however, may not 70 always be aligned with the expressed emotional content [21]. These deviations are explained by distinct emotion induction mechanisms and construction of meaning, explained in the third premise.…”