Music Psychology

This article discusses the aetiology and evolution of musical structure, specifically the sonata-form exposition, from a memetic perspective. It regards established musical forms as replicated schemata arising from the conglomeration of foreground-level memes, the resultant archetypes (structural memes or Memesätze) being replicated (reinstantiated) by different collections of functionally analogous (allelic) memes. After a discussion of the theoretical background — including the top-down/bottom-up generative dichotomy as it applies to form, and some attributes of memes affecting conglomeration — three sonata expositions, by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, are discussed as specific evidence in support of the general hypotheses advanced.

As a result of recent publications in the field of music theatre there has been a resurgence of interest in this highly misunderstood art form. This paper discusses the methodology and results from an online survey which investigated emotional responses to orchestration1 and instrumental aesthetics in contemporary music theatre. This report summarises the current literature, demonstrates gaps in the field, and suggests how further research may benefit the development of new music theatre. The research tests the hypothesis that music theatre is accidentally alienating to non-familiar audiences because of its complex musical language and perceived associations with opera and the ever-popular Broadway/West End musical. Since the 1960s, music theatre has been used to express artistic experimentalism in music performance. This paper aims to elucidate the connections between the instrumental and orchestration choices made by music theatre composers and the effects they have on a modern audience to identify key indexes which may indicate the art form’s failure to capture audience imaginations or to engage audiences emotionally. This research indicates that audiences generally have a good perception of instrumentation in music theatre. There is also evidence to support the hypothesis that there is a connection between lack of aesthetic appreciation (the admiration of beauty in art) and negative emotional response. However there remains a gap in our understanding of the abstract nature of music theatre, which some audience members struggle to comprehend or engage with emotionally.

The primary aim of this work was to investigate how listener attributes such as personality, empathy, and mood contribute to different emotional phenomena in the context of music. Predictions arising from personality and emotion theories were applied to music-related emotional phenomena, and tested using methods of experimental psychology. The emotional phenomena under investigation were perceived emotions, felt emotions, and preference for music expressing different emotions. A related aim was to systematically compare the applicability of different emotion models in the measurement of emotions expressed and induced by music. The work comprises five publications, each investigating a different aspect of the main aims. The findings suggest that personality, mood, and empathy contribute notably to individual differences in music-related emotional phenomena. Temporary mood was reliably associated with mood-congruent biases in ratings of perceived emotions, while personality traits correlated with preference ratings for music excerpts expressing different emotions. In the case of music-induced emotions, both mood and personality were associated with the intensity of emotional responses evoked by different types of excerpts, whereas trait empathy contributed to the susceptibility to music-induced sadness. Regarding the results of the emotion model comparisons, it is concluded that the dimensional model of affect may provide the most coherent and reliable ratings in studies where varied musical stimuli are used. Implications for future studies are raised concerning the significance of individual differences in musical contexts, as well as the selection of an appropriate emotion model for the study of emotions represented and induced by music.

This study extends an eight-country mapping exercise (McPherson & O’Neill, 2010; see Research Studies in Music Education issues 2010–2011) to include students’ motivation to study music within the Australian context. It sought to determine whether music learners (students learning an instrument or voice), might be more motivated to study academic subjects at school, and whether gender and socio-economic status (SES) affected student motivation to learn music at school. A total of 2,727 students from grades 5 to 12 completed a questionnaire based on Eccles and Wigfield’s expectancy-value framework. Data collected included: ratings of competence beliefs, interest, importance, usefulness and difficulty for music, English, maths, and science; indications of whether the students were currently learning a musical instrument or voice (music learners); and whether they would like to if given the opportunity. There was an overall significant decline in competence beliefs, interest, importanc...

A fundamental purpose of this study was to test whether theories and principles of music cognition and perception derived using western music can be applied to other styles of music, in this case, Carnātic music. Previous investigations showed that listeners use culture-specific and low-level sensory cues to comprehend familiar music, whereas they relied mainly on sensory cues and schematic knowledge gained from listening to music of their own culture to understand unfamiliar music. Research also shows that listeners hold mental representations of the hierarchical ordering of notes in musical scales of one’s culture which they readily access when listening to familiar and unfamiliar melodies. The existence of such representations has been demonstrated in real time using behavioral and neuroimaging techniques. The goals of the present study were to 1) behaviorally track listeners’ responses to two types of modulation as they developed over time in Carnātic music and 2) identify the various cues that listeners, familiar and unfamiliar with the music, utilized in order to perceive the modulations. The purpose of Experiment 1 was to obtain baseline profiles of four rāgams (modes) and compare these against profiles of modulating excerpts containing the same rāgams in Experiment 2. Carnātic and western music teachers heard brief Carnātic excerpts in one ear while in the other ear they heard a continuously sounded probe-tone. The probe-tone was one of the twelve chromatic notes of an octave. Participants judged continuously how well the probe-tone fitted with the melody. Results showed that western teachers’ responses matched those of the Indians on rāgams that had structures similar to the western scales but differed considerably when the rāgams were unfamiliar. Also, there were differences in the two groups’ responses to modulations. These discrepancies were primarily due to the influence of culture. The findings supported previous research and identified three types of cues: 1) culture-specific cues, which included theoretical knowledge of the rāgams and familiarity with the excerpts in the study, employed by Indian teachers, 2) basic psychophysical cues of duration and frequency of note occurrence employed by both Indian and western participants, and 3) transference of schematic knowledge of western music by western participants.

In the present paper, we intend to investigate the musical choices of Brazilian teenagers. We present the theory that support our thinking, that is based in concepts of identity and musical identities. For the purpose of this investigation, 76 teenagers from a Brazilian countryside region, with age varying from 13 to 16 years old and gender difference of approximately 60% male and 40% female young ones, filled out a questionnaire. With a quantitative approach, we analyzed the answers given to the questions "Do you listen to music? Which gender? Where?". Our data showed that all participants declared that they listen to music, and they do it in a variety of places, but with a significant amount of teenagers saying they usually listen to music at their homes - which comprehend all the answers given that surrounded this context, such as family, home and bedroom. As to the type of music they listen to, we perceived that the mainstream music is their usual choice, with genders such as forró, axé, pop music, [brazilian] funk, among others. We also stress out some particularities in the end of the paper and, to conclude our study, we try to outline the musical identity(ies) of the young people from Ceará's.
Key words: music, youth, identity, Ceará, Brasil.

Three experiments assessed the hypothesis that cognitive benefits associated with exposure to music only occur when the perceived emotion expression of the music and the participant’s affective state match. Experiment 1 revealed an affect-matching pattern modulated by gender when assessing high-arousal states of opposite valence (happy/angry) in an adult sample (n = 94) in which mood classification was based on self-report, and affective valence in music was differentiated by mode and other expressive cues whilst keeping tempo constant (139 BPM). The affect-matching hypothesis was then tested in two experiments with children using a mood-induction procedure: Experiment 2 tested happy/angry emotions with, respectively, 3–5-year-old (n = 40) and 6–9-year-old (n = 40) children, and Experiment 3 compared happy/sad emotions (i.e., states differing both for valence and arousal profiles) with 3–5-year-old children (n = 40), using music pieces differentiated also by fast vs. slow tempo. Whi...

Maandag zijn de eindexamens begonnen. Laatstejaars van de middelbare school duiken weer de studieboeken in om straks met een diploma de school uit te kunnen huppelen. Veel van hen studeren met muziek op de achtergrond. Maar welke muziek luisteren ze dan? En hoe efficiënt is het nou eigenlijk?

Abstract
Musicians have been working in Children’s Centres for over ten years, and early studies found that music teachers were adapting their established teaching approaches in order to meet these particular needs (MacKenzie & 2008; Young, 2007) With a Centre now located in every community, and with the majority offering music sessions for families, this study seeks to understand the rationale behind choosing music as part of a Centre’s programme of activities. It also investigates the effects of group music making on parents, children, and the ‘community of practice’ surrounding this activity. Many externally-funded, early years music project evaluations highlight the benefits of music participation for parents in terms of raised self-esteem and confidence (Lonie, 2010). Gudmundsdottir (2010) found higher than expected scores in the subjective mental wellbeing of mothers attending music classes together with their young children. This paper presents some preliminary findings from an exploratory pilot study carried out in a children’s centre in the east of England.
The methodology comprises semi-structured interviews, using open-ended questions, undertaken with professionals and parents. The themes emerging from the analysis of the data have been used to generate main themes for a questionnaire survey which forms part of a series of subsequent studies. The initial findings provide evidence of the contribution that music makes to the cultural world of children and their families. Musicians are developing new ways of working as part of multi- professional teams, using music as a tool for engagement and interaction.
Keywords
music, Children’s Centres, parent-child, group music activities

Chanting is a form of rhythmic, repetitive vocalization practiced in a wide range of cultures. It is used in spiritual practice to strengthen community, heal illness, and overcome psychological and emotional difficulties. In many traditions, chanting is used to induce mystical states, an altered state of consciousness characterised by a profound sense of peace. Despite the global prevalence of chanting, its psychological effects are poorly understood. This investigation examined the psychological and contextual factors associated with mystical states during chanting. Data were analyzed from 464 participants across 33 countries who regularly engaged in chanting. Results showed that 60% of participants experienced mystical states during chanting. Absorption, altruism, and religiosity were higher among people who reported mystical states while chanting compared to those who did not report mystical states. There was no difference in mystical experience scores between vocal, silent, grou...

Emotions in Music
Music is a permanent feature of the human society because of its ability to evoke emotions, both pleasant and negative, and influence moods. There numerous studies investigating emotions in music. Music enhances certain activities in the brain such as memories and reflection which affects one’s feelings. Music elicits emotions of joy, sadness, wonder, nostalgia, and tenderness. Because of its ability to influence emotions, music is being tried in neurological and psychiatric disease therapy. Despite its potential, there is little theoretical explanations about music-evolved emotions. This work gives various viewpoints about emotions in music.

Is music, in some sense, similar to language? The question takes on a special meaning when we speak of Classical Music - music of the later 18th and early 19th centuries. The idea that music is some kind of language has become central to the aesthetics of the age.

Despite the fundamental differences between both, this analogy is not merely a manner of speaking. Music can borrow features from language. To identify these features we need to take a closer look at both, and face the fact that language is still one of the greatest and most controversial riddles of everyday life.

By taking a historical perspective, viewing both music and language as accomplishments of human culture, many features come into relief that tend to get lost in the quest for essences.

Listening to music on an iPod, mobile telephone or other MP3 playing device is now widespread. Commonly taking place in public spaces, it envelops the listener in their own audio world (Bull 2000). However, due to the leakage of sound, the music is often experienced by those around, as ‘passive-listeners’. They are unlikely to have either chosen the music, or to have wanted to hear it that way. Just as music can produce positive effects, the uninvited audio intrusion brings negative effects. At the least, the intrusion can only add to the music which is experienced without focussed listening (Slobada and O’Neill). However, in not choosing to listen to the music, the passive listener may actually find it ‘morally and aesthetically offensive’ (Johnson and Cloonan 2008).

This paper looks at the issue of ‘passive listening’  for listeners who are forced to hear other peoples’ choice of music. Issues such as choice and quality are examined. It will show how this degredation of the environment can ultimately lead to negative health effects for the passive listener.

Bull, Michael (2000). ‘Sounding Out the City: Personal stereos and the Management of everyday life’
Slobada John A and O’Neill Susan A. (2001). ‘Music and Emotion: Theory and Research

It has been argued, in view of the social evolutionary origins of music and the social deficits found in autism, that individuals with autism will be emotionally unresponsive to music. However, a recent study of high-functioning adults with autism has shown that they appear to have a range of responses to music similar to typically developing people, including the deliberate use of music for mood management. In examining why these responses appear unaffected in autism, we explore possible mechanisms for musical mood induction in listeners, hypothesizing that the simulation theory of empathy may illuminate current controversies over the nature of emotion in music.
Drawing on these ideas, we put forward suggestions for
using a simple associative learning process between musically induced emotions and their cognitive correlates for the clinical treatment of alexithymia, a disorder that is common in autism and characterized by an absence of cognitive insight into one’s emotions.

This article explores timescales within absolute and psychological times, and identifies the many factors that affect our perception of time passing and estimation of durations, which inevitably influence our perception of musical structures; in particular, it discusses listening experiences, and theoretical approaches to psychological states and emotional responses. It proposes a process according to which the time-influencing factors operate between listener and music. The discussion is approached through the lens of the electroacoustic composer and makes references to short excerpts from the author’s work and related repertoire. However, as the article discusses time in relation to sound structures, it is also relevant to other time-based sound art and music.

This report evaluates the impact of live music in two hospitals in Nottingham, UK, as provided by Wellspring Music CIC. Observations and surveys showed positive responses among patients, which were also in line with what staff and visitors reported. The staff reported increased wellbeing as a result of the music sessions, and similar patterns were found among visitors and family members. The results suggest that music can create a space for patients in hospital to interact, connect and ease their anxiety and stress, and that such music activities can also support healthcare staff in their working environment by providing entertainment, relaxation and help bringing a level of normality and everyday life into the hospital wards.

Atmospheric in-store stimuli have been the subject of considerable empirical investigation for over 30 years. This research presents a meta-analysis of 66 studies and 135 effects (N = 15,621) calibrating the atmospheric effects of music, scent, and color on shopping outcomes. At an aggregate level, the results reveal that environments in which music or scent are present yield higher pleasure, satisfaction, and behavioral intention ratings when compared with environments in which such conditions are absent. Warm colors produce higher levels of arousal than cool colors, while cool colors produce higher levels of satisfaction than warm colors. The estimated average strength of these relationships ranged from small to medium. Effect sizes exhibited significant between-study variance, which can be partly explained by the moderators investigated. For instance, larger effect sizes were observed for the relationship between scent and pleasure in those samples with a higher (vs. lower) proportion of females. Data also indicated a tendency toward stronger music and scent effects in service settings as compared to retail settings. The results of this analysis, based on data aggregated across the research stream, offer retailers a guide to enhance customers' shopping experience through judicious use of in-store atmospheric stimuli.

Research has shown that not only do young athletes purposively use music to manage their emotional state (Bishop, Karageorghis, & Loizou, 2007), but also that brief periods of music listening may facilitate their subsequent reactive performance (Bishop, Karageorghis, & Kinrade, 2009). We report an fMRI study in which young athletes lay in an MRI scanner and listened to a popular music track immediately prior to performance of a three-choice reaction time task; intensity and tempo were modified such that six excerpts (2 intensities × 3 tempi) were created. Neural activity was measured throughout. Faster tempi and higher intensity collectively yielded activation in structures integral to visual perception (inferior temporal gyrus), allocation of attention (cuneus, inferior parietal lobule, supramarginal gyrus), and motor control (putamen), during reactive performance. The implications for music listening as a pre-competition strategy in sport are discussed.

This essay is about a phenomenon that, paradoxically, both disrupts mind wandering and accounts for its spontaneity: distraction. It is more about one of the mechanisms underlying mind wandering than its phenomenological content. However, following acknowledgements that mind wandering has positive and negative consequences for task fulfilment (Mooneyham & Schooler, 2013), this essay attempts to recuperate distraction, configuring it in terms of ‘drag’ in order to analyse it as more than merely bad or failed listening. Dragging the listener back onto her body, distraction emphasises an indeterminacy that, although covered over by the traction generated by regular and consistent listening, is always already embodied within the materiality of musical sound. This essay is about the impact of distraction upon the listener in the audience and the extent to which distraction forces her to recalibrate her activity as a hybrid of ‘listening despite distraction’ and ‘distracted listening’; a separate essay would be required to consider the quite different ways in which performers deal with distraction.

This article presents two studies that deepen the theme of how soundtracks shape our interpretation of audiovisuals. Embracing a multivariate perspective, Study 1 (N = 118) demonstrated, through an online between-subjects experiment, that two different music scores (melancholic vs. anxious) deeply affected the interpretations of an unknown movie scene in terms of empathy felt toward the main character, impressions of his personality, plot anticipations, and perception of the environment of the scene. With the melancholic music, participants felt empathy toward the character, viewing him as more agreeable and introverted, more oriented to memories than to decisions, while perceiving the environment as cozier. An almost opposite pattern emerged with the anxious music. In Study 2 (N = 92), we replicated the experiment in our lab but with the addition of eye-tracking and pupillometric measurements. Results of Study 1 were largely replicated; moreover, we proved that the anxious score, by increasing the participants' vigilance and state of alert (wider pupil dilation), favored greater attention to minor details, as in the case of another character who was very hard to be noticed (more time spent on his figure). Results highlight the pervasive nature of the influence of music within the process of interpretation of visual scenes.

INTRODUCTION
First Wave Of Bass Culture:
This chapter is very much introspective and autobiographical as it explores my pursuit of a career in the music industry. I’m a first-generation British born Jamaican, who grew up in the vibrant, ethnically diverse community of Handsworth in Birmingham. In 1975 I joined the nucleus what became Steel Pulse, Birmingham’s premier reggae band. In 1978 we signed to Island records and later that year to critical acclaim, we released our first album "Handsworth Revolution,” followed by a European tour with Bob Marley.

My upbringing to this point was both British and Jamaican. Which translated into large periods of my teens and early twenties spent, feeling disconnected from the birthplace of my parents and disowned in the place of my birth; like many of my generation I had an identity crisis. My Britishness was dwarfed by my desire to be Jamaican in ways I would learn, are just not possible unless you’re brought up there. To elders and visiting relatives, my best jamaican accent was considered fake, my dress sense oddly English, and my handwriting inferior to that accepted in Jamaican schools: the way I walked, didn't have 'that' bounce, and neither did the music I was making. At the time we - the band, referred to it as reggae. It has since been retitled as British Roots Reggae.

The present study examined the relationship between music preferences, values and musical identities in a sample of 606 Greek college students in the three institutes for higher education in Thessaloniki (Greece). Students indicated the importance of their music preferences in defining and evaluating themselves and their values on an abbreviated version of the Schwartz Value Survey (1992). The questionnaire included 26 musical genres resulted from an exploratory research.

The factor analysis revealed a typology of music preferences with five items: Sophisticated and Complex (e.g. jazz), Native-Greek Traditional (e.g. 'rembetika'), Sentimental and Sensational (e.g. pop), Established Rebellious (e.g. rock), and Non-mainstream Dissonant (e.g. punk).

Hierarchical regression analyses showed that values and perceived importance of music to self-definition (i.e. musical identities) contribute differentially in predicting the music preference structures (e.g. self-transcendence predicts Established Rebellious, conservation Sentimental and Sensational etc.).

The findings are discussed and interpreted in a social psychological framework as well as from the point of view of the sociology of music that has a long tradition in studying the musical taste and the factors that may have some influence on it. The chosen approach and point of view are based on the fact that during the last years it becomes more and more difficult to explain cultural consumption based on the "classical" demographic factors. As a result, there is an increasing interest to explore the common grounds between the omnivorousness hypothesis, developed by R. Peterson, and the homology argument, formulated by H. Gans and elaborated by P. Bourdieu.

This is the first study of this kind carried out in Greece, while the analysis of the relation between values and musical taste is not very common in the literature.

This writing appears as Appendix I in my book, Transitions in Consciousness from an African American Perspective: Original Essays in Psycho-Historical Context.  The book was published in 2004.  Appendix I is a comprehensive Timeline of African American Life, focused on Five Historical Time Frames For African American Life, with Consciousness Transition Themes and Examples of Historical Events.  The five time frames are: 1517-1863 (6 Themes)--The Beginning of Slavery in the New World Up to The Onset of a Civil War and The Emancipation of Slaves; 1863-1896 (4 Themes)--Resistance to the End of the Civil War and the Force of the Reconstruction Era Up to Early Popularized African American Cultural Influences; 1896-1929 (5 Themes)--Creative Tension of Two Ideologies for Black Progress: Vocational Education vs. College-Trained Leadership Up to The Second Black Nationalist Movement; 1929-1954 (4 Themes)—The Condoning of a Segregated American Lifestyle and the Treatment of African Americans As “Objects” By the U. S. Government Up To Challenges To U. S. Segregated Cultural Life Through Music, Art, Publications, Inventions, Sports, and Civic Symbols; 1954-2002 (Themes)—The Struggle of the Civil Rights Movement, Sit-In Movement, and Freedom Rides to Promote the Ideas of Freedom, Desegregation, and Full Equality for African Americans Up to The Struggle to Shift Race-Related Consciousness and to Urge Cultural Transformations By Infusing African American Cultural Influences and a Search for the Meaning of Race and Ethnicity Into The Mainstream Via The Mediums of Music, Dance, Film, Television, Publications, Sports, and Civic Symbols.  Even though the Time Line ends at 2002, the Themes are very instructive for understanding what is happening in today’s reality (2017) regarding race relations in the United States.  The Themes mirror how the mind, body, and spirit has been dealt with in the United States over time in regard to the phenomenon of race.

Music can be a powerful tool in the treatment of brain disorders and acquired injuries, helping patients recover language and motor skills. New music-based therapies can trigger neuroplasticity—fostering local connections and long-range pathways that compensate for impairments in damaged regions of the brain. The greatest benefits from therapy—cognitive, emotional and social—come from effortful engagement with music.

Full reference: Thompson, W.F., & Schlaug, G. (2015). The healing power of music. Scientific American: Mind, 26(2), 33-41.