Emotion elicitation during music listening: Subjective self‐reports, facial expression, and autonomic reactivity

Abstract

The scientific study of emotions has been of great interest for decades and it has raised numerous theoretical and experimental questions, such as the suitability of affective stimuli used for inducing emotions (Moltó et al., 1999(Moltó et al., , 2013. Most of the previous studies have focused on the use of affective pictures, facial expressions, words, or sounds to induce emotions in laboratory settings, obtaining clear and wellestablished results. However, the number of studies focused

The negative power of music: Effects of disliked music on psychophysiology

“…The physiological reactions to the disliked music reflect an increase in facial muscle activity as well as higher arousal, namely significant increases in HR, SCR, and body temperature, but not for RR. This is in line with other studies showing heightened arousal during music-evoked emotions 15,16 and listening to music with low vs. high liking ratings in particular, where SCR was an indicator for unpleasant music in comparison with neutral music 19 and with liked music, while RR was not. 21 Notably, these arousal measures were seen to occur in response to intensely pleasurable, chill-inducing music as well.…”

“…[14][15][16][17][18] While those results on high vs. low arousal seem to clearly reflect an increase in physiological measures, valence aspects in the physiology lead to rather inconsistent findings. Comparing pleasant music with unpleasant music (both high arousal), SC increased with pleasant music, 19,20 but also with less preferred music 21 and fearful music. 15 HR decreased in response to negative/unpleasant acoustic stimuli [22][23][24] but also increased for pleasant music.…”

“…15 HR decreased in response to negative/unpleasant acoustic stimuli [22][23][24] but also increased for pleasant music. 19,25 Interpreting these results is difficult, particularly in light of studies not showing any significant differences between experimental conditions in HR. 26,27 Measurements of facial electromyography (EMG), on the other hand, supposedly indicate valence.…”

“…Thus, zygomaticus activation has been associated with positive (pleasant) valence, while corrugator activation is associated with negative (unpleasant) valence in response to visual 28 and certain auditory stimuli. 17,19,[29][30][31] However, there is growing contradictory evidence suggesting that zygomaticus activity does not reflect felt positive valence alone. Dissonant music (rated as unpleasant/lower in liking) was found to increase zygomaticus activity compared to consonant music (rated as pleasant/liked) potentially because in these cases, such activation may represent tension and grimacing because of distress, rather than smiling.…”

Avoid pleasant music while you learn: the effects of musical chord complexity on declarative memory

“…A unique property of music is that it has the power to directly produce a wide range of emotions, despite its abstract nature 11,12 . Indeed, music activates brain regions associated with emotional processing 3 and can modulate autonomic and peripheral reactions, such as galvanic skin responses 1,13,14 , pupil size 15,16 , and heart rate 1,17 . According to one approach, music that is subjectively experienced as 'pleasant' might foster learning by generating an emotional response that, in turn, enhances perceptual and cognitive processing 18,19 .…”