Arousal, Mood, and The Mozart Effect

Thompson, William Forde; Schellenberg, E. Glenn; Husain, Gabriela

doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00345

Cited by 577 publications

(613 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…For the moment, we have no explanation for the specific choice of these two tonal centers. The relative prevalence of major and minor keys varies across styles and periods (e.g., there is relatively more minor in music by Bach, and relatively more major in Mozart), but a systematic analysis of large corpora in different styles and periods would presumably reveal a consistent dominance of major over minor-consistent with the general observation that people tend to prefer happy over sad sounding music (Thompson, Schellenberg, & Husain, 2001;Hunter & Schellenberg, 2010). Because major was more common, minor was perceived as a variant of it, rather than the reverse: minor became "the Other" of the majorminor system.…”

Section: The Analysis Of Huron and Davismentioning

confidence: 67%

Major-Minor Tonality, Schenkerian Prolongation, and Emotion: A commentary on Huron and Davis (2012)

Parncutt

2013

EMR

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On average, melodies in minor keys have smaller intervals between successive tones than melodies in major keys-consistent with the emotional difference between major and minor (Huron, 2008). Huron and Davis (2012) additionally showed that a part of this difference is inherent in the structure of major and minor scales, in combination with typical patterns of transition between scale steps: if one takes a typical major melody and lowers scale steps 3 and 6 by a semitone, then the average interval size is optimally reduced. I present an alternative theory of the origin of major and minor scales/keys and their emotional connotations. Huron's (2006) data on scale-step transitions in typical melodies is consistent with Schenker's (1922Schenker's ( , 1935 idea that a piece of tonal music can be interpreted as a prolongation of its tonic triad (mediated by the Ursatz). The emotional difference between major and minor may ultimately and primarily depend on the third of the tonic triad in the psychological background. Major music may tend toward positive valence simply because emotionally positive music is more common than emotionally negative music, and major triads and keys are more common than minor. Minor music may tend toward negative valence simply because scale degrees 3 and 6 sound lower than expected, consistent with emotional cues in speech (Huron, 2008).Submitted 2012 October 20; accepted 12 December 2012. KEYWORDS: major, minor, emotion, Schenker, prolongation WHY are major and minor scales like they are (with a specific ordering of tones and semitones) and not completely different? Why are major keys associated with positive emotional valence (happiness, contentment, serenity, grace, tenderness, elation, joy, victory, majesty…), and minor with negative emotional valence (sadness, anger, fear, tension, solemnity, lament, tragedy…)? For Meyer (1956), "the minor mode is not only associated with intense feeling in general but with the delineation of sadness, suffering and anguish in particular" (p. 227). Why? One would think that music psychologists would have answered these apparently simple questions by now. Evidently we have not, but things are moving in a promising direction. The contribution by Huron and Davis (2012) is a significant step towards a new explanation, and it also has interesting broader implications. In this extended commentary, I will present a new approach that builds upon their work.Consider first the origin of the ordering of tones and semitones in major and minor scales. I addressed that question in Parncutt (2011a). My basic assumption was that any passage of music in a major or minor key may be considered a Schenkerian prolongation of its tonic triad. I will examine this idea in detail below. For the moment, allow me to quickly consider the relationship between tones of the tonic triad and scale degrees in major-minor tonality (MmT).In Parncutt (2011a), I proposed that scale degrees in major and minor keys may be divided into three categories: the tones of the tonic triad, ...

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Section: The Analysis Of Huron and Davismentioning

confidence: 67%

Major-Minor Tonality, Schenkerian Prolongation, and Emotion: A commentary on Huron and Davis (2012)

Parncutt

2013

EMR

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“…It is often said that music ''expresses the emotions''. It is clear both intuitively, and from an increasing body of experimental work, that music can have profound effects on arousal and mood (e.g., Blood & Zatorre, 2001;Thompson, Schellenberg, & Husain, 2001), and this is clearly an important component of the ''meaning'' of music. However, limiting musical meaning to emotion seems insufficiently general, if not procrustean, since music can also be abstracted away from emotion, and the complex cognitive processing involved in music perception is, in an important sense, prior to any experienced emotion (cf.…”

Section: Linguistic Comparisons: Design Features Of Human Musicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, contemporary evidence that music listening or performance enhances non-musical skills or intelligence (most recently, concerning the so-called ''Mozart effect'') remains weak (Steele, Bass, & Crook, 1999;Thompson et al, 2001). That childhood musical practice is an aid to adult musical excellence is, in contrast, indubitable.…”

Section: Music As Playmentioning

confidence: 99%

The biology and evolution of music: A comparative perspective

2006

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Studies of the biology of music (as of language) are highly interdisciplinary and demand the integration of diverse strands of evidence. In this paper, I present a comparative perspective on the biology and evolution of music, stressing the value of comparisons both with human language, and with those animal communication systems traditionally termed ''song''. A comparison of the ''design features'' of music with those of language reveals substantial overlap, along with some important differences. Most of these differences appear to stem from semantic, rather than structural, factors, suggesting a shared formal core of music and language. I next review various animal communication systems that appear related to human music, either by analogy (bird and whale ''song'') or potential homology (great ape bimanual drumming). A crucial comparative distinction is between learned, complex signals (like language, music and birdsong) and unlearned signals (like laughter, ape calls, or bird calls). While human vocalizations clearly build upon an acoustic and emotional foundation shared with other primates and mammals, vocal learning has evolved independently in our species since our divergence with chimpanzees. The convergent evolution of vocal learning in other species offers a powerful window into psychological and neural constraints influencing the evolution of complex signaling systems (including both song and speech), while ape drumming presents a fascinating potential homology with human instrumental music. I next discuss the archeological data relevant to music evolution, concluding on the basis of prehistoric bone flutes that instrumental music is at least 40,000 years old, and perhaps much older. I end with a brief review of adaptive functions proposed for music, concluding that no one selective force (e.g., sexual selection) is adequate to explaining all aspects of human music. I suggest that questions about ARTICLE IN PRESSthe past function of music are unlikely to be answered definitively and are thus a poor choice as a research focus for biomusicology. In contrast, a comparative approach to music promises rich dividends for our future understanding of the biology and evolution of music.

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“…The optimally increased arousal and positive affect induced from music might enhance task performance (Ashby, Isen, & Turken, 1999;Lesiuk, 2005;2010;Lim, 2008;Necka, 2000;Revelle & Loftus, 1992;Schellenberg, 2001;Thompson et al, 2001). The previous studies provide the evidence of the benefit of music listening for positive mood change and enhanced perception of task performance (i.e., self-efficacy) in the computer users for the high-cognitive demand tasks (Lesiuk, 2005;2010;Lesiuk, Pons, & Polak, 2009).…”

Section: Effect Of Music On Positive Affect and Task Performancementioning

confidence: 91%

The Effects of Music Listening on Affect, Self-efficacy, Mental Exertion, and Task Performance of Online Learners

Lim¹,

Bang²

2018

SoTL_CHEd

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Online education is becoming more common in higher education, and the number of students taking online courses is projected to increase dramatically. Despite the popularity of online education, there is scarce research on the psychological well-being for those online learners as they work toward their academic goals. To address this gap, the current study examined the effects of music listening on online learners' mood, perceived self-efficacy, mental exertion, and task performance (N = 42). This study specifically focused on an online college education setting and examined the role of music listening and affect within this emotionally-dynamic context. Data analysis utilizing repeated measures ANOVA indicated that daily music listening has a significant influence on positive affect, negative affect, mental exertion, and task performance of the study participants, but not on

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Arousal, Mood, and The Mozart Effect

Cited by 577 publications

References 19 publications

Major-Minor Tonality, Schenkerian Prolongation, and Emotion: A commentary on Huron and Davis (2012)

Major-Minor Tonality, Schenkerian Prolongation, and Emotion: A commentary on Huron and Davis (2012)

The biology and evolution of music: A comparative perspective

The Effects of Music Listening on Affect, Self-efficacy, Mental Exertion, and Task Performance of Online Learners

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