Crossmodal transfer of arousal, but not pleasantness, from the musical to the visual domain

Arousal and valence (pleasantness) are considered primary dimensions of emotion. However, the degree to which these dimensions interact in emotional processing across sensory modalities is poorly understood. We addressed this issue by applying a crossmodal priming paradigm in which auditory primes (Romantic piano solo music) varying in arousal and/or pleasantness were sequentially paired with visual targets (IAPS pictures). In Experiment 1, the emotion spaces of 120 primes and 120 targets were explored separately in addition to the effects of musical training and gender. Thirty-two participants rated their felt pleasantness and arousal in response to primes and targets on equivalent rating scales as well as their familiarity with the stimuli. Musical training was associated with elevated familiarity ratings for high-arousing music and a trend for elevated arousal ratings, especially in response to unpleasant musical stimuli. Males reported higher arousal than females for pleasant visual stimuli. In Experiment 2, 40 nonmusicians rated their felt arousal and pleasantness in response to 20 visual targets after listening to 80 musical primes. Arousal associated with the musical primes modulated felt arousal in response to visual targets, yet no such transfer of pleasantness was observed between the two modalities. Experiment 3 sought to rule out the possibility of any order effect of the subjective ratings, and responses of 14 nonmusicians replicated results of Experiment 2. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of the crossmodal priming paradigm in basic research on musical emotions.     

Emotions induced by operatic music: psychophysiological effects of music, plot, and acting: a scientist's tribute to Maria Callas

Operatic music involves both singing and acting (as well as rich audiovisual background arising from the orchestra and elaborate scenery and costumes) that multiply the mechanisms by which emotions are induced in listeners. The present study investigated the effects of music, plot, and acting performance on emotions induced by opera. There were three experimental conditions: (1) participants listened to a musically complex and dramatically coherent excerpt from Tosca; (2) they read a summary of the plot and listened to the same musical excerpt again; and (3) they re-listened to music while they watched the subtitled film of this acting performance. In addition, a control condition was included, in which an independent sample of participants succesively listened three times to the same musical excerpt. We measured subjective changes using both dimensional, and specific music-induced emotion questionnaires. Cardiovascular, electrodermal, and respiratory responses were also recorded, and the participants kept track of their musical chills. Music listening alone elicited positive emotion and autonomic arousal, seen in faster heart rate, but slower respiration rate and reduced skin conductance. Knowing the (sad) plot while listening to the music a second time reduced positive emotions (peacefulness, joyful activation), and increased negative ones (sadness), while high autonomic arousal was maintained. Watching the acting performance increased emotional arousal and changed its valence again (from less positive/sad to transcendent), in the context of continued high autonomic arousal. The repeated exposure to music did not by itself induce this pattern of modifications. These results indicate that the multiple musical and dramatic means involved in operatic performance specifically contribute to the genesis of music-induced emotions and their physiological correlates.     

The Mozart Effect: An Artifact of Preference

The "Mozart effect" reported by Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky (1993, 1995) indicates that spatial-temporal abilities are enhanced after listening to music composed by Mozart. We replicated and extended the effect in Experiment 1: Performance on a spatial-temporal task was better after participants listened to a piece composed by Mozart or by Schubert than after they sat in silence. In Experiment 2, the advantage for the music condition disappeared when the control condition consisted of a narrated story instead of silence. Rather, performance was a function of listeners' preference (music or story), with better performance following the preferred condition.     

Relaxing music counters heightened consolidation of emotional memory

Emotional events tend to be retained more strongly than other everyday occurrences, a phenomenon partially regulated by the neuromodulatory effects of arousal. Two experiments demonstrated the use of relaxing music as a means of reducing arousal levels, thereby challenging heightened long-term recall of an emotional story. In Experiment 1, participants (N=84) viewed a slideshow, during which they listened to either an emotional or neutral narration, and were exposed to relaxing or no music. Retention was tested 1 week later via a forced choice recognition test. Retention for both the emotional content (Phase 2 of the story) and material presented immediately after the emotional content (Phase 3) was enhanced, when compared with retention for the neutral story. Relaxing music prevented the enhancement for material presented after the emotional content (Phase 3). Experiment 2 (N=159) provided further support to the neuromodulatory effect of music by post-event presentation of both relaxing music and non-relaxing auditory stimuli (arousing music/background sound). Free recall of the story was assessed immediately afterwards and 1 week later. Relaxing music significantly reduced recall of the emotional story (Phase 2). The findings provide further insight into the capacity of relaxing music to attenuate the strength of emotional memory, offering support for the therapeutic use of music for such purposes.     

How do location and control over the music influence listeners’ responses?

This study uses Mehrabian and Russell's ( 1974 ) Pleasure‐Arousal‐Dominance (PAD) model to consider how responses to both the music heard and overall in‐situ listening experience are influenced by the listener's degree of control over music selected for a particular listening episode and the location in which the listening takes place. Following recruitment via campus advertisements and a university research participation program, 216 individuals completed a background questionnaire and music listening task in a 3 (location) × 2 (experimenter‐ or participant‐selected music) design. After the listening task, participants completed a short questionnaire concerning the music they heard and the overall in‐situ listening experience. Results demonstrated that there was a positive relationship between control and liking for the music and episode, whether the former was considered in terms of: (1) whether the music was self‐selected or experimenter‐selected or (2) overt ratings of perceived control. Furthermore, the location and liking for the music were related to people's judgments of their enjoyment of the overall experience. This research indicates that the PAD model is a useful framework for understanding everyday music listening and supports the contention that, in a musical context, dominance may be operationalized as control over the music.     

Aggressive Outcomes and Videogame Play: The Role of Length of Play and the Mechanisms at Work

We conducted three experiments to rectify methodological limitations of prior studies on selective exposure to music and, thereby, clarify the nature of the impact of sad mood on music preference. In all studies, we experimentally manipulated mood (sad vs. neutral in Experiments 1 and 2; sad vs. neutral vs. happy in Experiment 3) and then assessed participants' preferences for expressively happy versus sad musical selections. To further help illuminate the reasons for their music preferences, we also asked participants to indicate how they believed listening to each song would affect their current emotional state as well as how appropriate they felt it would be to select a given song. Results suggested that individuals in sad moods were not reliably inclined to listen to sad songs, but rather, were strongly averse to listening to happy songs, apparently out of concern that choosing such songs would feel inappropriate. We discuss implications of these findings for theories of selective media exposure and emotion regulation.     

Modelling audiovisual integration of affect from videos and music

Two experiments examined how affective values from visual and auditory modalities are integrated. Experiment 1 paired music and videos drawn from three levels of valence while holding arousal constant. Experiment 2 included a parallel combination of three levels of arousal while holding valence constant. In each experiment, participants rated their affective states after unimodal and multimodal presentations. Experiment 1 revealed a congruency effect in which stimulus combinations of the same extreme valence resulted in more extreme state ratings than component stimuli presented in isolation. An interaction between music and video valence reflected the greater influence of negative affect. Video valence was found to have a significantly greater effect on combined ratings than music valence. The pattern of data was explained by a five parameter differential weight averaging model that attributed greater weight to the visual modality and increased weight with decreasing values of valence. Experiment 2 revealed a congruency effect only for high arousal combinations and no interaction effects. This pattern was explained by a three parameter constant weight averaging model with greater weight for the auditory modality and a very low arousal value for the initial state. These results demonstrate key differences in audiovisual integration between valence and arousal.     

Arousal, Mood, and the Mozart Effect

The "Mozart effect" refers to claims that people perform better on tests of spatial abilities after listening to music composed by Mozart. We examined whether the Mozart effect is a consequence of between-condition differences in arousal and mood. Participants completed a test of spatial abilities after listening to music or sitting in silence. The music was a Mozart sonata (a pleasant and energetic piece) for some participants and an Albinoni adagio (a slow, sad piece) for others. We also measured enjoyment, arousal, and mood. Performance on the spatial task was better following the music than the silence condition, but only for participants who heard Mozart. The two music selections also induced differential responding on the enjoyment, arousal, and mood measures. Moreover, when such differences were held constant by statistical means, the Mozart effect disappeared. These findings provide compelling evidence that the Mozart effect is an artifact of arousal and mood.     

Emotions over time: synchronicity and development of subjective, physiological, and facial affective reactions to music

Most people are able to identify basic emotions expressed in music and experience affective reactions to music. But does music generally induce emotion? Does it elicit subjective feelings, physiological arousal, and motor reactions reliably in different individuals? In this interdisciplinary study, measurement of skin conductance, facial muscle activity, and self-monitoring were synchronized with musical stimuli. A group of 38 participants listened to classical, rock, and pop music and reported their feelings in a two-dimensional emotion space during listening. The first entrance of a solo voice or choir and the beginning of new sections were found to elicit interindividual changes in subjective feelings and physiological arousal. Quincy Jones' "Bossa Nova" motivated movement and laughing in more than half of the participants. Bodily reactions such as "goose bumps" and "shivers" could be stimulated by the "Tuba Mirum" from Mozart's Requiem in 7 of 38 participants. In addition, the authors repeated the experiment seven times with one participant to examine intraindividual stability of effects. This exploratory combination of approaches throws a new light on the astonishing complexity of affective music listening.     

The influence of induced mood on music preference

The purpose of this study was to clarify the impact of different self-centered moods on music preference without listening to music. Participants’ affective state (sad vs. happy vs. neutral) were experimentally manipulated through the mood induction procedure, and then their preferences for music were ascertained through self-reports. To understand participants’ internal motivations for their choices, we also asked them to indicate how appropriate he/she felt it would be to select the different music types as well as why they made such choices. Results suggested that participants in a sad mood were inclined to listen to sad (and slow) music, those in a happy mood preferred to listen to happy (and fast) music, and those in a neutral mood did not consistently prefer to listen to neutral music. In addition, participants were averse to sad music when they were in a happy or neutral mood; while they showed no aversion to happy music when they were in a sad mood. In conclusion, individuals select valence-consistent music when they are in an autobiographical memory-induced mood state.     

Getting a tool gives wings: overestimation of tool-related benefits in a motor imagery task and a decision task

Two experiments examine whether people overestimate the benefits provided by tool use in motor tasks. Participants had to move different quantities of objects by hand (two at a time) or with a tool (four at a time). The tool was not within reach so participants had to get it before moving the objects. In Experiment 1, the task was performed in a real and an imagined situation. In Experiment 2, participants had to decide for each quantity, whether they preferred moving the objects by hand or with the tool. Our findings indicated that people perceive tool actions as less costly in terms of movement time than they actually are (Experiment 1) and decide to use a tool even when it objectively provides less time-based benefits than using the hands (Experiment 2). Taken together, the data suggest that people overestimate the benefits provided by tool use.     

Effects of mood states on information processing strategies: Two studies of automatic and controlled processing using misattribution paradigms

To test the hypothesis that a positive mood facilitates automatic processing and a negative mood facilitates controlled processing, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, after positive or negative mood was induced, participants rated the attractiveness of products while listening to a music tape that they were told would have the effect of inducing a positive, negative, or neutral mood. As predicted, augmentation effects were clearer in the negative mood condition than in the positive mood condition. In Experiment 2, participants were first presented with lists of names of non-famous Japanese companies either once or four times. One or two days later, they were presented with these names again, together with new names, and were asked to judge whether those names were famous or-non-famous. As predicted, subjects in a positive mood showed more false fame judgments than those in a negative mood because those in a positive mood did not control their feeling of familiarity correctly. These results indicated that those in positive moods are more likely to engage in automatic processing.     

Trying to be happier really can work: Two experimental studies

Does the explicit attempt to be happier facilitate or obstruct the actual experience of happiness? Two experiments investigated this question using listening to positive music as a happiness-inducing activity. Study 1 showed that participants assigned to try to boost their mood while listening to 12?min of music reported higher positive mood compared to participants who simply listened to music without attempting to alter mood. However, this effect was qualified by the predicted interaction: the music had to be positively valenced (i.e. Copland, not Stravinsky). In Study 2, participants who were instructed to intentionally try to become happier (vs. not trying) reported higher increases in subjective happiness after listening to positively valenced music during five separate lab visits over a two-week period. These studies demonstrate that listening to positive music may be an effective way to improve happiness, particularly when it is combined with an intention to become happier.     

The Sound of Silence: Can Imagining Music Improve Spatial Rotation Performance?

We report two experiments exploring whether imagining music improves spatial rotation via increases in arousal and mood levels (Schellenberg 2005). To aid their imagination, participants were given instructions (none, basic or detailed) and lyrics (present or absent). Experiment 1 showed no effect of instructions or lyrics on performance although participants felt that the presence of the lyrics helped. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1 except that the participants were musicians (as evidenced by musical experience and/or qualification). This time there was a significant effect of instructions in that those who received the detailed instructions performed significantly better than the no instruction condition although the presence of lyrics did not help. Further research is required to establish the similarity of the imagination to the traditional arousal and mood effect but the phenomenon may be useful for short-term boosts in spatial rotation activities.     

Expectations and Preferences for Sequences of Health and Money

Three experiments demonstrated that preferences for sequences of money differed from preferences for sequences of health. Undergraduates gave preference ratings for graphs that illustrated how monetary income or health quality might change over time, with total amount of money or health held constant. In Experiment 1, subjects expected to experience health that decreased over a lifetime; they also preferred such a sequence. In contrast, they expected to experience increasing monetary income over their lifetimes and preferred such monetary sequences. Experiment 2 showed that these different preferences for sequences of health and money did not hold true for short, 1-year sequences, where subjects had similar expectations about health and money. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2 and showed that expectations mediate the effect on preference of decision domain (health or money) and sequence length. These results point to the importance of expectations in forming preferences for sequences.     

Superior perception of phasic physiological arousal and the detrimental consequences of the conviction to be aroused on worrying and metacognitions in GAD

Although people suffering from generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) often report arousal symptoms, psychophysiological studies show no evidence of autonomic hyperarousal. Hypersensitivity toward and catastrophic interpretation of phasic arousal cues may explain this discrepancy. The authors tested (a) whether GAD sufferers perceive nonspecific skin conductance fluctuations (NSCFs), an indicator of phasic autonomic arousal, better than controls do and (b) whether the conviction to be aroused contributes to the maintenance of worrying and metacognitive beliefs about worrying. Thirty-three GAD sufferers and 34 healthy controls participated in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to detect their own NSCFs during a signal detection task. GAD sufferers accurately detected more of their NSCFs than did controls, who tended to miss NSCFs. In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to relax following worry induction. While relaxing, they received nonveridical feedback indicating either arousal or relaxation. Arousal feedback conserved negative metacognitive beliefs regarding worrying and also maintained negative mood and worry exclusively in GAD participants. These findings suggest that superior perception of phasic arousal cues and their catastrophic misinterpretation increases worrying, negative metacognitive beliefs about worrying, and anxious mood in GAD.     

Effect of post-encoding emotion on recollection and familiarity for pictures

Although prior studies have examined the effect of post-encoding emotional arousal on recognition memory for words, it is unknown whether the enhancement effect observed on words generalizes to pictures. Furthermore, prior studies using words have showed that the effect of emotional arousal can be modulated by stimuli valence and delay in emotion induction, but it is unclear whether such modulation can extend to pictures and whether other factors such as encoding method (incidental vs. intentional encoding) can be modulatory. Five experiments were conducted to answer these questions. In Experiment 1, participants encoded a list of neutral and negative pictures and then watched a 3-min neutral or negative video. The delayed test showed that negative arousal impaired recollection regardless of picture valence but had no effect on familiarity. Experiment 2 replicated the above findings. Experiment 3 was similar to Experiment 1 except that participants watched a 3-min neutral, negative, or positive video and conducted free recall before the recognition test. Unlike the prior two experiments, the impairment effect of negative arousal disappeared. Experiment 4, where the free recall task was eliminated, replicated the results from Experiment 3. Experiment 5 replicated Experiments 1 and 2 and further showed that the impairment effects of negative arousal could be modulated by delay in emotion induction but not by encoding method or stimuli valence. Taken together, the current study suggests that the enhancement effect observed on words may not generalize to pictures.     

Emotional response to musical repetition

Two experiments examined the effects of repetition on listeners' emotional response to music. Listeners heard recordings of orchestral music that contained a large section repeated twice. The music had a symmetric phrase structure (same-length phrases) in Experiment 1 and an asymmetric phrase structure (different-length phrases) in Experiment 2, hypothesized to alter the predictability of sensitivity to musical repetition. Continuous measures of arousal and valence were compared across music that contained identical repetition, variation (related), or contrasting (unrelated) structure. Listeners' emotional arousal ratings differed most for contrasting music, moderately for variations, and least for repeating musical segments. A computational model for the detection of repeated musical segments was applied to the listeners' emotional responses. The model detected the locations of phrase boundaries from the emotional responses better than from performed tempo or physical intensity in both experiments. These findings indicate the importance of repetition in listeners' emotional response to music and in the perceptual segmentation of musical structure.     

Affective responses to body stimuli: comparing male and female bodies with cropped heads and masked faces

Three studies were conducted to determine whether headless bodies evoke affective responses that might confound neuroimaging and electrophysiological findings. In Experiment 1, 224 participants rated pictures, including bodies with cropped heads and masked faces, for disgust, fear, naturalness, valence and arousal. In Experiment 2, 38 participants viewed the same images during a free word association task, whilst in Experiment 3 galvanic skin responses were measured as 57 participants completed a similar rating task to that in Experiment 1. No differences were found between responses elicited by bodies without heads versus bodies with masked faces, although female bodies were thought of more positively than male bodies. This suggests that headless bodies are not abhorrent and are appropriate stimuli for investigating body-selective perceptual processes as they do not evoke face-processing mechanisms. Our findings also suggest that differences between male and female body viewing should be considered when investigating visual body perception.     

Time,money, and happiness: How does putting a price on time affect our ability to smell the roses?

In this paper, we investigate how the impatience that results from placing a price on time impairs individuals' ability to derive happiness from pleasurable experiences. Experiment 1 demonstrated that thinking about one's income as an hourly wage reduced the happiness that participants derived from leisure time on the internet. Experiment 2 revealed that a similar manipulation decreased participants' state of happiness after listening to a pleasant song and that this effect was fully mediated by the degree of impatience experienced during the music. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that the deleterious effect on happiness caused by impatience was attenuated by offering participants monetary compensation in exchange for time spent listening to music, suggesting that a sensation of unprofitably wasted time underlay the induced impatience. Together these experiments establish that thinking about time in terms of money can influence how people experience pleasurable events by instigating greater impatience during unpaid time.