Who Enjoys Listening to Sad Music and Why?

Vuoskoski, Jonna K.; Thompson, William Forde; McIlwain, Doris; Eerola, Tuomas

doi:10.1525/mp.2012.29.3.311

Cited by 238 publications

(312 citation statements)

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“…One possible explanation could be that the nostalgia was a by-effect of the music-evoked sadness, rather than an effect of the music. It has been reported previously that one common trigger of nostalgia is negative affect such as sadness (Wildschut, Sedikides, Arndt, & Routledge, 2006), and these emotions have been hard to disentangle in previous studies (Vuoskoski et al, 2012).…”

Section: Problems and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 90%

From Sound to Significance: Exploring the Mechanisms Underlying Emotional Reactions to Music

Juslin¹,

Barradas²,

Eerola³

2015

The American Journal of Psychology

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Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. A common approach to study emotional reactions to music is to attempt to obtain direct links between musical surface features such as tempo and a listener's responses. However, such an analysis ultimately fails to explain why emotions are aroused in the listener. In this article, we we explore an alternative approach, which seeks to explain musical emotions in terms of a set of psychological mechanisms that are activated by different types of information in a musicalevent. This approach was tested in four experiments that manipulated four mechanisms (Brain stem reflex, Contagion, Episodic memory, Musical expectancy), by selecting existing musical pieces that featured information relevant for each mechanism. The excerpts were played to 60listeners, who were asked to rate their felt emotions on 15 scales. Skin conductance levels and facial expressions were measured and listeners reported subjective impressions of relevance to specific mechanisms. Results indicated that the target-mechanism conditions evoked emotions largely as predicted by a multi-mechanism framework and that mostly similar effects occurred across the experiments that included different pieces of music. We conclude that a satisfactory account of musical emotions requires consideration of how musical features and responses are mediated by a range of underlying mechanisms. Mere sound can have profound effects on listeners. It can be argued that sound is more 'intimate' than sight -"more inside our 'heads'" (Thompson, 2009, p. 125). Nowhere is this impact more apparent than in the case of music. Still, it is often regarded as one of the great mysteries in life that music, which consists only of abstract tone sequences, is able to arouse such strong emotions. What is more, listeners differ considerably in their emotions to music (Sloboda, 1996). Thus, Gutheil (1952) asked whether music and emotion research "can ever reach the goal of science, namely to discover laws of cause and effect in order to predict the results" (p. 11). In this article, we explore some of the principal ways in which music might evoke emotions and show that despite their elusiveness, emotional reactions to music can be predicted to a greater extent than is usually believed. Music and Emotion ResearchMusic is ubiquitous in today's society (North & Hargreaves, 2008). It often occurs in a variety of social contexts, and accompanies people's activities "from the cradle to the grave" (Gregory, 1997, p. 124). In a significant...

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Section: Problems and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 90%

From Sound to Significance: Exploring the Mechanisms Underlying Emotional Reactions to Music

Juslin¹,

Barradas²,

Eerola³

2015

The American Journal of Psychology

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“…The music can be both perceived and/or felt, wherein perceived emotion may be described as the emotion the listener judges the music to be trying to convey, and felt emotion is the emotion the listener actually experiences (Gabrielsson 2001). An example might be music with a "sad" flavour which, when played to a listener in a negative emotional state may actually make the listener feel happier (Vuoskoski et al 2012). Participants in our experiments were carefully instructed, via written and oral explanations, to report their felt emotions as they completed the experiment.…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Affective brain–computer music interfacing

et al. 2016

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Abstract. ObjectiveWe aim to develop and evaluate an affective Brain-computer music interface (aBCMI) modulating the affective states of its users. ApproachAn aBCMI is constructed to detect a user's current affective state and attempt to modulate it in order to achieve specific objectives (for example, making the user calmer or happier) by playing music which is generated according to a specific affective target by an algorithm music composition system and a case-based reasoning system. The system is trained and tested in a longitudinal study on a population of 8 healthy participants, with each participant returning for multiple sessions. Main ResultsThe final online aBCMI is able to detect its users current affective states with classification accuracies of up to 65% (3 class, p< 0.01) and modulate its user's affective states significantly above chance level (p< 0.05). SignificanceOur system represents one of the first demonstrations of an online affective braincomputer music interface that is able to accurately detect and respond to user's affective states. Possible applications include use in music therapy and entertainment.

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“…physiological reactions to music (Miu & Balteş, 2012), but Vuoskoski and colleagues have shown that empathy is associated with susceptibility to induced sadness from music , and also enjoyment of sad music (Vuoskoski, Thompson, McIlwain, & Eerola, 2012). Researchers have also suggested that music increases prosocial behavior in children (Kirschner & Tomasello, 2010), adolescence (Rickson & Watson, 2003) and adults (Greitemeyer, 2009).…”

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confidence: 99%

Can Music Increase Empathy? Interpreting Musical Experience Through the Empathizing–Systemizing (E-S) Theory: Implications for Autism

Greenberg

Rentfrow

Baron‐Cohen

2015

EMR

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Recent research has provided evidence that musical interaction can promote empathy. Yet little is known about the underlying intrapersonal and social psychological processes that are involved when this occurs. For example, which types of music increase empathy and which types decrease it; what role, if any, does empathy play in determining individual differences in musical preference, perception, and performance; or, how do these psychological underpinnings help explain the musical experiences of people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). To address these questions we employ the Empathizing-Systemizing (E-S) theory as a fruitful framework in which to understand these music-related phenomena. Specifically, we explore how individual differences in musical preference, perception, and performance can be explained by E-S theory. We provide examples from open-ended descriptions of strong musical experiences to demonstrate the ways in which empathy and music inter-relate. Importantly, we discuss the implications for the study of autism, and for how music therapists and clinicians can use music as a tool in their work with individuals diagnosed with ASC.Submitted 2014 April 29; accepted 2014 June 29. KEYWORDS: empathy, autism, musical preference, perception, performance EMPATHY is a fundamental feature of human interaction. It requires both cognitive (Dennett, 1989;Baron-Cohen, 1995) and affective (Davis, 1994) components that enable people to recognize the emotional and mental states of others, and to respond to these with appropriate emotions (Harris, Johnson, Hutton, Andrews, & Cooke, 1989;Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004). Empathy allows for the perception of another's thoughts and feelings, and allows one to predict how they will behave (Whiten, 1991). Music listening and performance, which is a universal feature of human behavior (Blacking, 1995), also requires components of cognitive and affective processing. We listen and are exposed to music for hours each day (Motion Picture Association of America, Inc, 2007;Rentfrow, 2012), during which time we perceive the emotional and psychological content in music; interpret the thoughts, feelings, and proficiency of the musicians from auditory and visual cues (Thompson, Russo, & Quinto, 2008;Tsay, 2013); respond emotively to the music and the musician (Juslin, & Västfjäll, 2008;Zentner, Grandjean, & Scherer, 2008), and can predict the direction of a melodic phrase or narrative. Empathy is thus connected with the perception, interpretation, and emotional reactions to music.However, only recently have researchers in the field of music, personality, and social psychology begun to focus on how music and empathy are linked. For example, Wöllner (2012) showed that people with higher levels of empathy are able to perceive and identify a musician's intentions with greater accuracy than those with lower levels, and Egermann and McAdams (2013) demonstrated that perceived and induced emotion from music is moderated by empathy. Further, not only does empathy influenc...

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Who Enjoys Listening to Sad Music and Why?

Cited by 238 publications

References 21 publications

From Sound to Significance: Exploring the Mechanisms Underlying Emotional Reactions to Music

From Sound to Significance: Exploring the Mechanisms Underlying Emotional Reactions to Music

Affective brain–computer music interfacing

Can Music Increase Empathy? Interpreting Musical Experience Through the Empathizing–Systemizing (E-S) Theory: Implications for Autism

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