Introduction

When asked why they listen to music, the most common response people give is that they like the way music makes them feel. If it is true that music's importance lies in the feelings it evokes in listeners, then it suggests that one should approach the study of music by relating musical organization to human emotion.

While other approaches to describing and analysing music may have value, music scholars are remiss if we fail to examine music from the perspective of emotion.

This document assumes that the reader is familiar with the principal discoveries in the general field of emotion research. A suitable summary is available in another web document.

Emotions -- Big and Small

A problem with the existing research literature concerning emotion is what might be called the emphasis on "big" emotions: fear, anger, joy, surprise, etc. These "big" emotions are not commonly evoked while listening to music. Music rarely evokes fear, anger, or genuine surprise. And while music can bring a listener to a point of elation, much of the music people enjoy is capable only of evoking a somewhat subdued "joy".

There is, I think, a domain of feelings whose effects are more subtle and much less obvious. We might call these miniature feelings "micro-emotions."

Negative Micro-Emotions

Recall, for example, Randolph Nesse's description of those rare individuals who are born without pain sensors. These individuals typically die young. The problem is not that they succumb to major illness such as appendicitis. Instead, they suffer the consequences of serious circulation problems, arising because they don't frequently change posture.

Negative micro-emotions are evident in the following everyday annoyances:

• changing posture because of discomfort
• visual glare, visual obstruction
• itch (ask deep-sea divers who wear head-gear)
• nasal congestion
• temperature, discomfort due to coolness, heat, humidity
• mild thirst & hunger
• call of nature

Auditory Annoyances

Similar annoyances (micro-emotions) can be found in purely auditory phenomena:

• plugged ears; water in the ears; unpopped ears on an aircraft
• stereo to mono
• static on radio
• listening over telephone (stress levels can be measured only over long durations)
• poor speech intelligibility (as when someone speaks inarticulately)
• masking
• sensory dissonance (Sensory dissonance is a mildly negatively valenced emotion arising from stimulus-engendered degradation of the auditory system)

Positive Micro-Emotions

There are exist small pleasures. Examples:

• watching people pass on the street
• the smell of flowers; new laundry
• viewing a distant vista
• rolling over in bed
• a sip of water
• sitting down after standing for a while
• warm water on your hands
• closing your eyes when tired
• putting on some music

What evidence do we have that micro-emotions have physiological concomitants? Recall tachycardic versus bradycardic heart-rate responses. Tachycardic responses are indicative of mild annoyance while bradycardic responses are indicative of mild interest. These responses can occur many times per minute.

Associations

1. classical conditioning provides one of the simplest and most pervasive ways we learn
   
   
2. conditioning is automatic, valenced, indiscriminant and correlative
   
   Valenced: conditioning depends on the linking of stimuli with negative or positive reinforcements. Said another way, conditioning happens when we are emotionally engaged (either positively or negatively).
   
   Automatic: conditioning occurs whether we want it to or not. No conscious thought is required for conditioning to occur.
   
   Indiscriminant: we associate all aspects of the environment with the negative or positive conditioning.
   
   Correlative: conditioning occurs without our understanding of causal relationships. When I feel nauseous, the cause may or may not be the food I have eaten. Nevertheless, the body will assume that any coinciding stimulus, may be important.
   
   The indiscriminant nature of classical conditioning is probably the best approach to learning, since we cannot be certain of the causal connection.
   
   
3. oxytocin -- we learn best when limbic activation occurs
   
   
4. "darling their playing our song" phenomenon

Sound Symbolism

Within a given culture, some sounds appear repeatedly and accrue specific learned associations. These associations can be so specific that the sounds acquire the status of symbols.

In many cases these sound symbols will have emotional connotations.

1. descending major third of a doorbell (`ding dong')
   (association: welcome)
2. wailing siren (police or ambulance)
   (association: emergency - alert)
3. opening motive/theme of Beethoven's fifth symphony
   (association: seriousness of purpose)
4. beginning of the national anthem
   (association: nationalism)
5. minor triad
   (association: sadness)

Anticipatory/Statistical Learning

In classical conditioning, learning is linked to some sort of limbic arousal. That is, conditioning arises when the stimulus is linked to a negative or positive feeling.

However, there is another kind of learning that takes place that is not dependent on limbic arousal. In statistical learning, we can learn to respond to "neutral" stimuli as well.

This kind of learning is important, not for what events "mean," but what events presage -- that is, what events imply may occur in the future.

1. the ability to anticipate future events is important for survival since we can better prepare an appropriate behavioral response. Brains have evolved mechanisms through which the probabilities of future events can be learned.
2. we learn by simple exposure to the environment (Saffran, et al, 1999)
3. We are sensitive to the simple frequency of occurrence of events in the environment.
4. We are also sensitive to the conditional probabilities of events: given event A, event B might have a high probability of occurring, whereas event C might have a low probability of occurring (Saffran, Johnson, Aslin & Newport, 1999).
5. Exposure Effect: We prefer familiar stimuli.
   
   Notice, however, that all of the experiments studying the exposure effect have avoided high levels of repetition. It is possible (probable) that highly repetitive stimuli lead to habituation and boredom.
6. Meyer: expectations fulfilled and expectations thwarted
7. Long-term and short-term expectations can conflict. For example, we expect a dominant chord to have a high likelihood of being followed by a tonic chord. Yet, personal familiarity with a particular musical work might lead us to expect a deceptive cadence.
8. People can listen with the "wrong" expectations. For example, experienced musicians listen to 12-tone music differently from non-musicians. Non-musicians continue to expect pitch continuations that fit within some tonal context.

While Meyer pointed out the importance of expectation in musical experience, the subject of expectation has received comparatively little attention by researchers in the field of emotion.

Surprise does not always evoke a "startle response"; most "surprises" may be better described as mini-emotions.

• the unfolding events of the environment provide innumerable instances of "mini-surprises"
• the learning is context dependent. In the case of music we learn:
  1. a schema for scale tones (e.g. we are surprised by an out-of-tune pitch; we experience little surprise if an unheard scale note appears.
     
     For example, consider the occurrence of the pitch `B' in the following melody (see arrow). Although this pitch appears for the first time, its' surprise value is low due to an evoking of the C-major scale context which deems `B' highly probable.
  2. a schema for various styles
  3. veridical memory for particular musical works
  4. piece-specific expectations that arise as we hear the piece for the first time

  What are the emotional implications of expectation?

  1. Exposure Effect: simple preference for the expected: (recall that the evolutionary goal of any expectation mechanism is to accurately predict future events)
  2. Habituation: insensitivity to highly predictable events. This leads to boredom (loss of interest in the environment), which may lead to sleep.
  Musical Implications:
  1. We should grow to like sound sequences with repetition.
  Note: the individual sound events themselves may evoke positive or negative responses (e.g. tonic pitch, dissonant sonority, loud sound). In addition, expectations for events may engender positive or negative responses.

  	Negative	Neutral	Positive
  Expected	Annoyance Resignation Sadness Crankiness	Boredom Stability Repose	Contentment Serenity Reassurance
  Unexpected	Disappointment Startle Defense Disgust Anger	Interest Surprise	Delight Joy Surprise
  Delayed	Worry Foreboding Anxiety Tension Fear	Orienting Attention	Anticipation Savoring Relishing Hope Craving

  Reflexive Auditory Responses

  1. Startle response
  2. Defense reflex
  3. Orienting response

  Connotative Auditory Emotions

  1. Cuteness
  2. Smiling voice
  3. vocal pitch, aggressivity and submissiveness
  4. nervous voice
  5. sexiness and asperance
  6. proximity annoyance (e.g. buzzing fly)

  Sincerity

  Why are listeners so preoccupied with the personal lives of their favorite artists?

  Recall that people are vigilance to identify expressive emotional deceptions.

  This suggests that whenever listeners encounter expressive emotional content, we seek ways to evaluate the sincerity of the source.

  When people are asked to describe what it is they like about their favorite music, the following evaluative descriptive terms are common:

  genuine, authentic, sincere, real, has integrity, not a sell-out (Huron & Serafini, MS)

  Might account for:
  • difficulty in relating to machine-composed music (due to the absence of agency)
  • artists encountering unduly `intimate' fans
  • widespread interest in the personal lives of favorite artists

  Mixed Emotions

  PET scans appear to provide evidence consistent with experiencing two emotional states concurrently.

  It may be that "mixed emotions" are common when apprehending stimuli. In particular, it is possible that reflexive emotional responses (fast brain) and cognitive emotional responses (slow brain) may differ.

  A Model of Music and Emotion

  This model proposes that six different processes can be identified that are associated with the processing of auditory stimuli. The six processes are: (1) reflexive responses, (2) denotative responses, (3) connotative responses, (4) associative responses, (5) empathetic responses, and (6) critical responses.

  By a reflexive response, I mean automatic fast-brain responses such as the startle response or the defense reflex. These responses occur automatically, but may be partially inhibit by the expectation that a particular stimulus will occur. Most reflexive responses are negatively valenced.

  By a denotative response, I mean those auditory processes involved in identifying the source of some sound. These might relate to identifying my mother's voice, or identifying that it is the telephone ringing. Denotative processes may or may not result in some sort of emotional response.

  By a connotative response, I mean those auditory processes involved in characterizing the quality or "timbre" of sounds. For example, a sound might be perceived as "cute" or "fearful". A sound might connote a large amount of energy, or connote small size.

  By a associative response, I mean the evoking of mental associations (often conditioned responses). Associations may be entirely arbitrary as when Pavlov's dogs associated the sound of a bell with food.

  By an empathetic response, I mean the deciphering of agency. This relates to determining whether a sound was caused by an inanimate object or an animate being. And if the sound was caused or initiated by an animate being, deciphering the emotional state of that being.

  By a critical response, I mean the conscious cognitive process by which the intentions of an agent are evaluated, and the self-reflective monitoring of the appropriateness (or inappropriateness) of one's responses to a sound.

  An Illustration: Sound of Slamming Door

  1. Caused by Wind

  1.	Reflexive Response	Yikes!! [startle response]
  2.	Denotative Response	Sounds like a door closing.
  3.	Connotative Response	Lots of energy present. A large object is moving.
  4.	Associative Response	Reminds me of when I lived in England, and the back door used to slam regularly. Such a beautiful view of the Trent River.
  5.	Empathetic Response	That's the wind. No cause for panic.
  6.	Critical Response	I'm so stupid for not propping the door open better.

  An Illustration: Sound of Slamming Door

  2. Caused by Human

  1.	Reflexive Response	Yikes!! [startle response]
  2.	Denotative Response	Sounds like a door closing.
  3.	Connotative Response	Lots of energy present. A large object is moving.
  4.	Associative Response	Reminds me of when I lived in England, and the back door used to slam regularly. Such a beautiful view of the Trent River.
  5.	Empathetic Response	That's the sound of an angry person. I hear the anger; I feel the anger.
  6.	Critical Response	She has a right to be angry, given the circumstance.

  When a sound occurs, I propose that all six types of responses are initiated concurrently. Of course the reflexive responses occur the fastest.

  Conclusions

  
  
  
  
  
  • Music & Emotion Course Page
  This document is available at http://csml.som.ohio-state.edu/Music829C/Notes/Huron.html
  
  

  Learned Discrimination Dispositions

  Using whatever cues are available in the environment, discriminate:
  1. male from female
  2. sincere from insincere expressions