An SEM Approach to Validating the Psychological Model of Musical Groove

Abstract

The experience of wanting to move in response to music is commonly known as feeling the groove. According to the psychological model of musical groove by Senn et al. (2019), the causes for the urge to move are linked to the properties of the music itself, to the personal background of the listener, to the listening situation, and to feedback loops between body movement and cognition. The model formulates eight hypotheses stating that the music affects a listener’s urge to move mediated through a variety of cognitive processes. This study develops a method based on Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to empirically test the model hypotheses. It evaluates five model hypotheses using data from an online listening experiment with 135 participants and 16 stylistically diverse musical stimuli (n=2160 observations). The SEM model had a good fit with the data (CFI=.958, RMSEA=.051) and explained a large proportion of the variance in the latent urge to move variable (R2=.737). Results show that music affects the urge to move mediated through listeners’ experiences of energetic arousal, listening pleasure, and temporal regularity. The stimuli themselves showed direct effects on the urge to move that were not mediated through the hypothesised mediation pathways. This suggests that the model is not yet complete. The current study demonstrates that the mediation structure of the psychological groove model can successfully be implemented using an SEM approach. The methodology may be adapted to investigate different repertoires, populations, and hypotheses in the future.

Dissecting the groove experience: The role of instrumentation, low-level audio features, and personal musical background.

“…In their development of the EGQ, Senn et al (2020) proposed a separation of Pleasure and Urge to Move in modeling groove experience and also argued that the latent variable Pleasure might be a precondition to the experience of Urge to Move. Senn et al (2022) confirmed that Pleasure and the Urge to Move are positively associated but also pointed out that it cannot be a strict precondition, since some songs are rated low on Pleasure but high on Urge to Move. Additionally, Düvel et al (2021) point out that Pleasure (as a latent variable measuring the experience of groove) is hard to separate from the construct of simply liking the music.…”

Groove as a multidimensional participatory experience

“…This might also be related to why people embody music in various ways during spontaneous dance (Toiviainen & Carlson, 2022; Toiviainen et al, 2010). Therefore, we might suggest that groove is not necessarily limited to a typical tempo nor solely to experiences of pleasure and an urge to move, but instead to a combination of several factors (similarly as suggested with the groove model: Senn et al, 2019, 2023). Thus, it is clear that more research investigating different kinds of groove experiences is needed.…”

“…Although previous groove models consider the influence of personal background and concrete listening situation for groove experience (Senn et al, 2019, 2023), current mood of the listeners is a rather novel finding in the groove literature. Its contribution requires further investigation and might shed light on the personal and interindividual variance in experience of groove.…”

“…Only in a recent preprint Senn and colleagues (2022) reported additional scales: “temporal regularity”, “time-related interest” and “energetic arousal”. Yet, in another recent paper, Senn et al (2023) highlighted that the current groove model is incomplete, and that significant causal pathways which influence the groove experience are yet to be discovered. A revised definition of groove and careful consideration of its dimensions could, for instance, provide more substantial scale developments and help researchers to accurately measure the intensity of groove experiences.…”

Dopamine dysregulation in Parkinson's disease flattens the pleasurable urge to move to musical rhythms

“…When listening to rhythmic music, we often feel an automatic and pleasurable urge to tap our feet or bob our heads along with the underlying beat or pulse of the rhythm. This pleasurable urge to move to music (PLUMM) is a key component of groove (Câmara & Danielsen, 2018;Duman et al, 2022;Janata et al, 2012;Madison, 2006;Senn et al, 2019;Witek et al, 2014) and highlights the deep connection between music, movement and pleasure. In a recent neuroimaging study, we showed that PLUMM is associated with greater activity in dorsal and ventral striatal regions within the basal ganglia (BG), along with cortical regions associated with the motor and limbic cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuits (Alexander et al, 1986;Matthews et al, 2020) (henceforth, cortico-striatal circuits).…”