The Influence of Music on the Emotional Interpretation of Visual Contexts

Bravo, Fernando

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-41248-6_20

Cited by 11 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…(c) In contrast to the studies conducted by Koelsch et al (2006), Koelsch, Rohrmeier, et al (2013), and the music conditions only differed in terms of dissonance level controlled by interval content (Bravo, 2013), while all of the other parameters such as amplitude, tempo and, specially, instrumental timbre were deliberately kept equal across conditions. (d) The stimuli were realistic music unfolding through time (i.e., a chorale composed by the first author in the style of the romantic period) as opposed to other studies that have worked with single chords (Pallesen et al, 2005) or randomly arranged groups of dyads/triads (Foss et al, 2007).…”

Section: The Perspective Taken In This Investigation Supports Leonardmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the present study, we employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the brain codes emotional value when processing musical stimuli of contrasting levels of tonal dissonance, strictly controlled by changes in interval content (Bravo, 2013(Bravo, , 2014. We use the term "tonal dissonance" to refer to the effects of tonal function (Costère, 1954;Hindemith, 1984;Koechlin, 2001;Riemann, 2018;Schenker & Oster, 2001), sensory dissonance (von Helmholtz & Ellis, 1895) and horizontal motion (Ansermet, 2000) on perceived musical tension (Bigand et al, 1996;Bigand & Parncutt, 1999;Lerdahl & Krumhansl, 2007).…”

Section: The Perspective Taken In This Investigation Supports Leonardmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The stimuli employed in the present study were based on musical materials created for a previous audiovisual experiment, which aimed to examine the effect of tonal dissonance on the emotional interpretation of visual information (Bravo, 2013). For the mentioned experiment, a choral piece, written in the form of musical variations, was made to sound more or less consonant or dissonant by modifying its harmonic structure (i.e., interval content manipulation) producing two otherwise-identical versions of the same musical piece.…”

Section: Stimulus Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The scores for the consonant and dissonant conditions were written in Sibelius (version 6.2, Avid, www. sibelius.com), exported as MIDI files (musical instrument digital interface), and played with the same virtual instruments (Strings audio samples from Sibelius 6.2 Library -Sound Essentials) [further information about stimuli construction is available in: (Bravo, 2013)]. Table 1 summarizes interval class content (Forte, 1820;Temperley, 2010) for the first measure of the consonant and dissonant conditions ( Figure 1), and portrays the comparative level of consonance/dissonance throughout a given category.…”

Section: Stimulus Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regardless of the fact that many response patterns are culturally learned and happen in a specific context, there is substantial evidence indicating that dissonant music induces unpleasant connotations in most ordinary western-culture listeners (Blood et al, 1999;Costa, Bitti, & Bonfiglioli, 2000;Plomp & Levelt, 1965;Trainor & Heinmiller, 1998;Zentner & Kagan, 1996). As such, this connotative facet of musical dissonance has been characteristically employed to shape the emotional comprehension of visual narratives in horror films, where it is often employed to signal threats or to negatively bias the spectators' attribution of mental states to the characters depicted in the films (Bravo, 2013(Bravo, , 2014.…”

Section: Comparison With Other Neuroimaging Studies Employing Musicmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex response to systematically controlled tonal dissonance during passive music listening

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Human Brain Mapping

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Several studies have attempted to investigate how the brain codes emotional value when processing music of contrasting levels of dissonance; however, the lack of control over specific musical structural characteristics (i.e., dynamics, rhythm, melodic contour or instrumental timbre), which are known to affect perceived dissonance, rendered results difficult to interpret. To account for this, we used functional imaging with an optimized control of the musical structure to obtain a finer characterization of brain activity in response to tonal dissonance. Behavioral findings supported previous evidence for an association between increased dissonance and negative emotion. Results further demonstrated that the manipulation of tonal dissonance through systematically controlled changes in interval content elicited contrasting valence ratings but no significant effects on either arousal or potency. Neuroscientific findings showed an engagement of the left medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the left rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) while participants listened to dissonant compared to consonant music, converging with studies that have proposed a core role of these regions during conflict monitoring (detection and resolution), and in the appraisal of negative emotion and fear‐related information. Both the left and right primary auditory cortices showed stronger functional connectivity with the ACC during the dissonant portion of the task, implying a demand for greater information integration when processing negatively valenced musical stimuli. This study demonstrated that the systematic control of musical dissonance could be applied to isolate valence from the arousal dimension, facilitating a novel access to the neural representation of negative emotion.

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