Relationships between Expressed and Felt Emotions in Music

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Relationships between Expressed and Felt Emotions
in Music

• Paul Evans
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Emery Schubert
• University of New South Wales

HCSNet Workshop - Music as Human
Communication MARCS Auditory Laboratories, UWS,
July 17, 2006.
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Emotion Locus

• Emotions in music listening can be
• Expressed by the music
• Felt by the listener
• Are they the same?
• Gabrielsson 2001

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Perceived
Felt
the listeners emotion response is in agreement
with the emotional expression in the music (p.
131)
the listener reacts with an emotion opposite
to that expressed in the music. A common and
easily understood situation is that the music in
the past has been associated with an event of the
opposite emotional quality (p. 134).
a potential relationship, positive or negative,
between expression and response does not occur.
Whatever emotional expression there is in the
music, the listener stays in the same mood
(whatever it is) or stays emotionally neutral
or one and the same emotional expression in the
music evokes different emotional responses in
different listeners, or in the same listener, or
on different occasions. (p. 136)
there is not even a potential relationship
between variables in the expression and variables
in the response.
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External
Internal
The emotions are the same
The emotions are different
The emotions are opposite
The emotion in one locus is neutral
There is no potential relationship between the
two emotion loci
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Experiment

• 45 Participants
• Stimuli
• Experimenter-selected pieces
• Pachelbels Canon
• Advance Australia Fair
• Participant-selected stimuli
• Dimensional Model

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Dimensional Model of Emotion
arousal
valence
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Criteria - Positive
arousal
T 31?
valence
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Criteria - Opposite
arousal
angry
T 172?
valence
depressed
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Results

• Imagined and Sounded responses were not
  significantly different

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Positive Relationship
Kylie Minogue Im Spinning Around Expressed
emotion Party atmosphere. Fun times.
Euphoria Felt emotion Extreme happiness.
Reminds me of school and makes me want to dance.
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Contrapositive Relationship
Gilbert and Sullivan Pirates of
Penzance Expressed emotion Calm and
fine. Felt emotion Joy and happiness and fun.
A sense of wonder and excitement.
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Opposite Relationship
Advance Australia Fair Expressed
emotion Pride. Felt emotion Irritation.
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No Systematic Relationship
Advance Australia Fair Expressed emotion The
music is trying to express a sense of
patriotism. Felt emotion Makes me feel a bit
more patriotic, but doesnt really make me feel
anything.
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Conclusions

• Imagined music may elicit the same emotional
  response as hearing music.
• When a positive relationship is assumed, there is
  a 38 chance of error