MUSIC ELICITS PROFOUND EMOTIONS; HOWEVER, THE time-course of these emotional responses during listening sessions is unclear. We investigated the length of time required for participants to initiate emotional responses ("integration time") to 138 musical samples from a variety of genres by monitoring their real-time continuous ratings of emotional content and arousal level of the musical excerpts (made using a joystick). On average, participants required 8.31 s (SEM = 0.10) of music before initiating emotional judgments. Additionally, we found that: 1) integration time depended on familiarity of songs; 2) soul/funk, jazz, and classical genres were more quickly assessed than other genres; and 3) musicians did not differ significantly in their responses from those with minimal instrumental musical experience. Results were partially explained by the tempo of musical stimuli and suggest that decisions regarding musical structure, as well as prior knowledge and musical preference, are involved in the emotional response to music.
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April 2009
Research Article|
April 01 2009
Emotion in Motion: Investigating the Time-Course of Emotional Judgments of Musical Stimuli Available to Purchase
Justin Pierre Bachorik,
Justin Pierre Bachorik
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School
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Marc Bangert,
Marc Bangert
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School
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Psyche Loui,
Psyche Loui
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School
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Kevin Larke,
Kevin Larke
University of California, San Diego
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Gottfried Schlaug
Gottfried Schlaug
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School
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Music Perception (2009) 26 (4): 355–364.
Citation
Justin Pierre Bachorik, Marc Bangert, Psyche Loui, Kevin Larke, Jeff Berger, Robert Rowe, Gottfried Schlaug; Emotion in Motion: Investigating the Time-Course of Emotional Judgments of Musical Stimuli. Music Perception 1 April 2009; 26 (4): 355–364. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2009.26.4.355
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