Acoustically Expressing Affect

Abstract

Composers convey emotion through music by co-varying structural cues. Although the complex interplay provides a rich listening experience, this creates challenges for understanding the contributions of individual cues. Here we investigate how three specific cues (attack rate, mode, and pitch height) work together to convey emotion in Bach's Well Tempered-Clavier (WTC). In three experiments, we explore responses to (1) eight-measure excerpts and (2) musically “resolved” excerpts, and (3) investigate the role of different standard dimensional scales of emotion. In each experiment, thirty nonmusician participants rated perceived emotion along scales of valence and intensity (Experiments 1 & 2) or valence and arousal (Experiment 3) for 48 pieces in the WTC. Responses indicate listeners used attack rate, Mode, and pitch height to make judgements of valence, but only attack rate for intensity/arousal. Commonality analyses revealed mode predicted the most variance for valence ratings, followed by attack rate, with pitch height contributing minimally. In Experiment 2 mode increased in predictive power compared to Experiment 1. For Experiment 3, using “arousal” instead of “intensity” showed similar results to Experiment 1. We discuss how these results complement and extend previous findings of studies with tightly controlled stimuli, providing additional perspective on complex issues of interpersonal communication.

Emotion and expertise: how listeners with formal music training use cues to perceive emotion

“…Comparing ratings of these musically trained participants with ratings by those without training allows for useful insight. Overall, the model for valence ratings of expert listeners accounted for more of the total variance (83.3%) than previous analyses of untrained listeners (76.2%) (Battcock and Schutz 2019). We found a similar trend for arousal, with the model for trained listeners explaining more variance (54.3%) previous analyses of untrained listeners (51.1%).…”

“…We employ a dimensional approach to measuring emotion (Di Mauro et al 2018;Russell 1980) in both musically trained and untrained individuals, with the goal of clarifying ongoing debate surrounding the effect of musical expertise on the decoding of emotional cues. This approach extends our previous work exploring the relationship between mode, pitch and timing (quantified as attack rate) and perceived emotion in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC)-a polyphonic 48-piece work balanced with respect to mode and widely performed and studied by musicians (Battcock and Schutz 2019). Using this stimulus set, we previously found timing information more important than mode-however that experiment used nonmusicians, raising interesting questions about how training might alter the perceptual role of cues such as mode.…”

“…Our primary motivation for this study comes from interest in interpreting our recent findings regarding emotional communication in Bach’s well-known set of piano pieces The Well-Tempered Clavier (Book 1) . Perceptual ratings of those pieces have utility in identifying the specific contributions of cues such as timing, pitch height, and mode to emotional responses (Battcock and Schutz 2019 ). As part of that study, we examined differences in responses to excerpts cut to eight musical measure segments vs. “variable length” segments cut to end in locations aligned with the piece’s stated key.…”

“…Given the equivocal nature of evidence regarding the effects of musical training, the role of listener expertise in conveyed musical emotion remains opaque. Here we examine emotional responses of musically trained listeners across two experiments using (1) eight measure excerpts, (2) musically resolved excerpts and compare them to responses collected from untrained listeners in Battcock and Schutz ( 2019 ). In each experiment 30 participants with six or more years of music training rated perceived emotion for 48 excerpts from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier ( WTC) using scales of valence and arousal.…”

An Interdisciplinary Review of Music Performance Analysis

“…For instance, a factor analysis by Schubert and Fabian (2014) examined the features and qualities that may be related to perceived expressiveness, finding that dynamics had the highest impact on the factor labeled 'emotional expressiveness.' Recent work by Battcock and Schutz (2019) showed attack rate to be the most important predictor of intensity (or "arousal" in terms of twodimensional models of emotion). While this work was not strictly performance analysis since the authors measured elements that correspond to fixed directions from a score (e.g., mode; pitch height), the authors do analyze attack rate, which is related to timing.…”