A Synthetic Approach to the Study of Musically-induced Emotions

Abstract

Music appears to deeply affect emotional, cerebral and physiological states.Yet, the relationship between specific musical parameters and emotional responses is still not clear. Even if it is difficult to expect reproducible and independent control of musical parameters from human performers, synthetic music systems now allow to generate expressive musical pieces. In this study, we use a system, called the SMuSe, to generate a set of well-controlled musical stimuli, and analyze the influence of parameters of musical structure, performance and timbre on emotional responses. 13 students 5 women, M: 25.8 , range: 22-31 took part in the experiment. They were asked to rate three blocks of sound samples in terms of the emotion they felt on a 5 points SAM scale of valence, arousal and dominance. These blocks corresponded to changes in the structure parameter: 3 modes Minor, Major, Random * 3 registers Bass, Tenor, Soprano; performance level: 3 tempi Lento, Moderato, Presto * 3 dynamics Piano, Mezzo Forte, Forte * 3 articulations Staccato, Regular, Legato; and timbre: 3 Attack time Short, Medium, Long * 3 Brightness Dull, Regular, Bright * 3 Damping Low, Medium, High. For each block, we followed a repeated measure design where the conditions were presented in random order. Repeated measure MANOVAs showed that minor and random modes were more negative, while soprano register was more arousing. Staccato articulations, presto tempi and forte dynamics felt more arousing but also more negative. Presto tempi and forte dynamics were perceived as more dominant. Bright sounds with short-attack and low damping were more arousing. Longer attacks and brighter sounds felt more negative. Finally, bright and low damping sounds were perceived as more dominant. This study shows the potential of synthetic music systems for analyzing and inducing musical emotion. In the future, such systems will be highly relevant for therapeutic applications but also for sound-based diagnosis, interactive gaming, and physiologically-based musical instruments.