Effects of musical valence on the cognitive processing of lyrics

Abstract

Sivumäärä -Number of pages 55 or 83 with References and Appendices Tiivistelmä -AbstractThe effects of music on the brain have been extensively researched, and numerous connections have been found between music and language, music and emotion, and music and cognitive processing. Despite this work, these three research areas have never before been drawn together in a single research paradigm. This is significant as their combination could lead to valuable insights into the effects of musical valence on the cognitive processing of lyrics. Based on the feelings-as-information theory, which states that negative moods lead to analytic, systematic and fine-grained processing, while positive moods encourage holistic and heuristic-based processing, the current study (n = 64) used an error detection paradigm and found that significantly more error words were detected when paired with negatively valenced music compared to positively valenced music. Non-musicians were better at detecting error words than musicians, and native English speakers outperformed non-native English speakers.Such a result explains previous findings that sad and happy lyrics have differential effects on emotion induction, and suggests this is due to sad lyrics being processed at deeper semantic levels. This study provides a framework in which to understand the interaction of lyrics and music with emotion induction -a primary reason for listening to music.

Toward a standard model of musical improvisation

“…In music, melody has been shown to supersede lyrics in parsing emotional content from unfamiliar excerpts (Ali & Peynircioğlu, 2006), though an excerpt's emotional valence can affect accuracy in attending to lyrical content (Fiveash & Luck, 2016). Emotional accuracy is preserved when lexical information is ambiguous or absent (Hellbernd & Sammler, 2016), but variance in accuracy is more extreme for language, supporting the above-mentioned lexical/prosodic comprehension model in determining emotional content (Faber & Fiveash, 2014).…”

Towards a more explicit account of the transformation

“…In our own empirical studies we have typically been careful not to conflate the two, and have carried out studies using either instrumental music exclusively [8,9], or compared the e↵ects of instrumental, unfamiliar musc with those of self-selected, familiar music containing lyrics [10]. We agree that di↵erent domains (i.e., musical features and lyrics) need to be related to their respective mechanisms [11,12]. However, we want to reject the view of "absolute music" that has no semantic meaning, and to emphasize that even instrumental music has semantic connotations and learnt associations related to its genre, instrumentation, and extramusical information.…”

Towards a standard model of musical improvisation

“…In music, melody has been shown to supersede lyrics in parsing emotional content from unfamiliar excerpts (Ali & Peynircioğlu, ), though an excerpt's emotional valence can affect accuracy in attending to lyrical content (Fiveash & Luck, ). Emotional accuracy is preserved when lexical information is ambiguous or absent (Hellbernd & Sammler, ), but variance in accuracy is more extreme for language, supporting the above‐mentioned lexical/prosodic comprehension model in determining emotional content (Faber & Fiveash, ).…”