Week 11: Processing Emotions Induced by Music; Trainor & Schmidt

In music, ‘meaning appears to arise largely through the unfolding of sounds over time in relation to musical expectations,’ (p. 310) indicating that music is a relatively ‘closed-system.’ Acoustical cues for emotion exist, including structural (included in the musical ‘score’) and performance characteristics (such as performer interpretation).

Philosophers: (1) Hanslick: no relationship between music appreciation and emotion; (2) Langer: ‘music bears some relation to emotion in that the rise and fall of tension in music, the interplay between uncertainty and resolution, mimics the time course of emotional experience… in this view, music does not express emotion, but we understand music through its similarity to emotional dynamics’ (p. 311); and (3) Meyer: music directly expresses emotions.

Emotions can be classified in a number of ways, but one way is through two main dimensions of emotion: valence (negative to positive), and intensity (low to high), leading to four poles of emotion. Positive emotions are in general correlated with approach behaviors and negative emotions are correlated with withdraw behaviors (which is logical in terms of social function and emotional purpose).

Music can directly elicit emotion; this is evidenced by the physiological changes that music can induce (such as respiratory rate, heart rate, skin conductivity, etc.). This means that phylo-genetically older parts of the nervous system are activated by music. This is significant: music is not merely about emotions.

Emotional centers of the brain include the amygdale, the hypothalamus and the basal forebrain – a relatively small number of brain sites. Emotion is also processed in frontal lobes. Music also seems to activate frontal lobes, including cortical systems associated with emotions. ‘Despite the fact that music does not appear to have an obvious survival value for modern adults, research indicates that listening to music does activate autonomic, subcortical, and cortical systems in a manner similar to other to other emotional stimuli’ (p. 310).

The authors ‘propose that music may be so intimately connected with emotional systems because caregivers use music to communicate emotionally with their infants before they are able to understand language’ (p. 310).

Methods of Study: brain lesion studies, PET studies, and EEG. EEG is the main method used in the research presented. Using EEG, the authors found that music does ‘activate the same cortical, subcortical, and autonomic circuits as other emotions’ (p. 320). The authors hypothesize that the use of singing – both lullaby and playsong style – play a role in emotional communication prior to infant language development, and that this connection between music and emotion is retained in our adult life, giving music its emotional meaning to humans (also, the authors also note that young infants can identify emotions in music from a young age).

EEG patterns of activation in frontal region at rest can be used to indicate personality types (in terms of positive affect, ability to regulate negative effect – leading to depression, anxiety, etc.). By measuring baseline EEG patterns in the frontal region, the authors studied the effect of music (using excerpts which were screened to express the four main emotions of the valence/intensity model: fear, joy, happy and sad). Music activated the same emotional EEG patterns that non-musical emotions activate, implying shared neural substrates of musical and non-musical emotion. Interestingly, adults show frontal asymmetries related to valence (whether this is true is infants is still unknown due to previous methodological issues – like the inability of expecting the same level of musical listening sensitivity between infants and adults, though plausible methodologies have now been identified). However, such frontal asymmetries are not seen for intensity.