Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

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

Juslin, P.N.; Barradas, G.; Eerola, T.

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


Authors

P.N. Juslin

G. Barradas



Abstract

A common approach to studying 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 explore an alternative approach, which aims to account for musical emotions in terms of a set of psychological mechanisms that are activated by different types of information in a musical event. this approach was tested in 4 experiments that manipulated 4 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 60 listeners, 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 multimechanism 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.

Citation

Juslin, P., Barradas, G., & Eerola, T. (2015). From Sound to Significance: Exploring the Mechanisms Underlying Emotional Reactions to Music. American Journal of Psychology, 128(3), 281-304. https://doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.128.3.0281

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Sep 1, 2015
Deposit Date Aug 24, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal American Journal of Psychology
Print ISSN 0002-9556
Electronic ISSN 1939-8298
Publisher University of Illinois Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 128
Issue 3
Pages 281-304
DOI https://doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.128.3.0281

Files

Accepted Journal Article (604 Kb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
From The American Journal of Psychology. Copyright 2015 of the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.




You might also like



Downloadable Citations