Graphical Layout of the Musical Preferences Studies: An Overview on How the Studies on Musical Tastes Are Conducted

Abstract

Various studies have been exploring the numerous determinants form our musical tastes and some review papers classify them in a discursive manner to provide a more holistic understanding of the determinants. This study, as a similar endeavor, depicts the mains determinants of our musical preferences categorized with regards to our musical perception process via a graphical model. After dividing the internal and external factors, the model provides a layer-based structure illustrating both musical taste determinants and modes of investigation. This paper provides three layers of determinants. The basic layer reflects the trace of more fundamental aspects of music on our musical tastes, like tempo as well as aggressive or happy as perceived attributes. The classification layer discusses on the trace of some classes in musical appreciations, like genre and Big Five Model. As lastly, the skimmed layer, as the midst layer, illustrates the newly-developed factors summing up the determinants of our musical taste. The introduced three layers also classify the external determinants of our musical taste. Consequently, this study not only provides a more holistic understanding of the determinants but also reflects the gap among the conducted studies to provide a platform for further investigations