A MULTIDIMENSIONAL STUDY OF PERCEPTUAL-EMOTIONAL QUALITIES IN MUSIC

W edin L. A multidimensional study of perceptual-emotional qualities in music. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1972, 13 , 241–257.—Forty musical excerpts were judged in terms of emotionally coloured adjectives using a check-list procedure and different types of sorting procedures. Similarities were estimated by rank correlation or simple confusion indices and nonmetric multidimensional scaling was applied. Three dimensions were txtracted and labelled Intensity-Softness, Pleasantness-Unpleasantness and Solemnity-Triviality. These qualities were then related to the stimulus qualities judged in more "technical" terms like tempo, pitch, modality etc.