How the Expressive Therapies Continuum Informs Intermodal Transfers

Expressive arts therapy (ExAT) is a therapeutic approach that incorporates visual art, music, drama, and dance/movement into the counseling environment. An essential element in ExAT practice is the intermodal transfer, an intentional shift between arts modalities to enhance clients’ understanding and realization. Currently, no theoretical guidelines for intermodal transfers exist in the field of ExAT. In search of a theoretical structure, the author of this Capstone Thesis proposed that the Expressive Therapies Continuum (ETC) informed intermodal transfers. Predominantly presented as an art therapy approach, the ETC originally intended to include all expressive therapies. Yet, there is minimal recent literature that directly connected the ETC with the therapeutic modalities of music, dance/movement, drama, and expressive arts. To further illustrate this relationship and suggest a potential framework for intermodal transfers, this literature review analyzed the ETC and linked it to each of the expressive therapies modalities through commonalities and neuroscience findings. The concepts and information gleaned through research confirmed and validated the ETC\u27s ability to inform ExAT intermodal transfers

The effects of music on brain development

The influence of music on brain development is a complex and widely studied area in science. Studies show that being exposed to music, especially in early stages of life, can improve different cognitive abilities like language, reasoning, and spatial-temporal skills. Engaging with music also helps in regulating emotions and developing social skills. Furthermore, music education supports creativity and self-expression, which are crucial for overall brain development. With a deeper understanding of how music affects the brain at a neurological level, educators, therapists, and parents can leverage its advantages to enhance well-being and cognitive functions for people of all ages

Music emotion recognition: a multimodal machine learning approach

Music emotion recognition (MER) is an emerging domain of the Music Information Retrieval (MIR) scientific community, and besides, music searches through emotions are one of the major selection preferred by web users. As the world goes to digital, the musical contents in online databases, such as Last.fm have expanded exponentially, which require substantial manual efforts for managing them and also keeping them updated. Therefore, the demand for innovative and adaptable search mechanisms, which can be personalized according to users’ emotional state, has gained increasing consideration in recent years. This thesis concentrates on addressing music emotion recognition problem by presenting several classification models, which were fed by textual features, as well as audio attributes extracted from the music. In this study, we build both supervised and semisupervised classification designs under four research experiments, that addresses the emotional role of audio features, such as tempo, acousticness, and energy, and also the impact of textual features extracted by two different approaches, which are TF-IDF and Word2Vec. Furthermore, we proposed a multi-modal approach by using a combined feature-set consisting of the features from the audio content, as well as from context-aware data. For this purpose, we generated a ground truth dataset containing over 1500 labeled song lyrics and also unlabeled big data, which stands for more than 2.5 million Turkish documents, for achieving to generate an accurate automatic emotion classification system. The analytical models were conducted by adopting several algorithms on the crossvalidated data by using Python. As a conclusion of the experiments, the best-attained performance was 44.2% when employing only audio features, whereas, with the usage of textual features, better performances were observed with 46.3% and 51.3% accuracy scores considering supervised and semi-supervised learning paradigms, respectively. As of last, even though we created a comprehensive feature set with the combination of audio and textual features, this approach did not display any significant improvement for classification performanc

Proceedings of the Sempre MET2018: Researching Music, Education, Technology

MET 2018 Researching Music - Education - Technology (MET2018) 26–27 March 2018 Following the great success of its inaugural conference held by the University of Hull in 2010, MET2014, and MET2016 at IOE London, this fourth two-day conference (#sempreMET) was hosted by the Department of culture, Communication & Media, IOE, University College London, at the University of London’s iconic Senate House. Although the 'musicking' humanity has been reliant on technology from the very beginning of its musical journey, we cannot deny that, nowadays, technology changes, develops, and its role is being redefined at a dramatically greater rate. This sempre conference aimed to celebrate technology's challenging role(s) and provide a platform for critical discourse and the presentation of scholarly work in the broader fields of digital technologies in: music composition and creation music performance music production (recording, studio work, archival and/or communication of music) diverse musical genres (e.g. popular, classical, world, etc.) creativity/ies real world praxial contexts (e.g. classroom, studio, etc.) assessment of musical development and/or assessment of performance computational musicology music and Big Data (a special call for chapters for an edited OUP VOLUME will be posted soon) the music industry special educational contexts/needs The conference provided opportunities for colleagues to present and discuss ideas in a friendly and supportive environment, as well as to provide a meeting point for academics, scholars, teachers, and practitioners who were seeking to form connections and synergies with participants from around the world

The physiological study of emotional piloerection: A systematic review and guide for future research

This paper provides an accessible review of the biological and psychological evidence to guide new and experienced researchers in the study of emotional piloerection in humans. A limited number of studies have attempted to examine the physiological and emotional correlates of piloerection in humans. However, no review has attempted to collate this evidence to guide the field as it moves forward. We first discuss the mechanisms and function of non-emotional and emotional piloerection in humans and animals. We discuss the biological foundations of piloerection as a means to understand the similarities and differences between emotional and non-emotional piloerection. We then present a systematic qualitative review (k = 24) in which we examine the physiological correlates of emotional piloerection. The analysis revealed that indices of sympathetic activation are abundant, suggesting emotional piloerection occurs with increased (phasic) skin conductance and heart rate. Measures of parasympathetic activation are lacking and no definite conclusions can be drawn. Additionally, several studies examined self-reported emotional correlates, and these correlates are discussed in light of several possible theoretical explanations for emotional piloerection. Finally, we provide an overview of the methodological possibilities available for the study of piloerection and we highlight some pressing questions researchers may wish to answer in future studies

The consoling power of music:The role of emotions and musical aspects

Music and emotions are inextricably linked to one another. Music's ability to evoke emotion in listeners, is one of the reasons why people turn to music to improve their mood or express what they are feeling. Even though music is able to console, little systematic research has considered how music can offer consolation. This dissertation investigates music's consoling properties and considers related behavior, such as crying over music. Our research shows that listening to music is one of the foremost ways for people to console themselves, even more so than looking for support from others, eating, or crying. Moreover, it is a very private and intimate activity that mostly occurs when alone after the experience of a personal loss, such as the loss of a loved one or feeling misunderstood. Songs of consolation elicit feelings of being moved, sadness, and nostalgia, but also give rise to feeling strengthened, and relaxed. According to listeners it is the music itself (e.g., the melody), the lyrics (in case of pop music), and the memories that music evokes, which brings solace. It provides listeners with a sense of connection in which music can function as an understanding friend. In follow-up research, we investigated a possible association between emotional eating and several ways of regulating one's mood through music listening, including consolation, and discharge. We found an association between emotional eating and discharge, but not between emotional eating and consolation. Discharge is the venting of one's emotions, for instance, by listening to very loud music. Discharge appears to be the opposite of consolation. Crying over music is a common behavior. It mostly occurs when alone, and crying episodes tend to be short with mostly moist eyes and some sobbing. Listeners experience feelings of being moved, sadness, nostalgia and powerless when crying over music. They attribute their tears to sad memories evoked by music, nostalgia, the music itself, and the lyrics. Women cry more often and more intense than men, but the typical gender differences that are reported in the general crying literature, appear to be smaller when crying over music. Normally, these smaller differences are reported in case of severe distress or profound joy (e.g., a wedding, birth, or loss of a loved one). Lastly, we compared the linguistic and musical characteristics of often-used Dutch and English sung funeral music to popular hit music by the same artists. Funeral music sounds sadder, is less energetic, and more acoustic than popular music. Funeral music is also more often in a major key. This suggests a mixture between positive and negative feelings that also found in consolation through music and crying over music. We also find this mixed affect in the lyrics, which has more positive than negative words, and most of these negative words express sadness. We further found interesting differences in the use of second-person pronouns, and verbs in the future tense; second-person pronouns, and future tense verbs were more common in funeral songs. These pronouns express a personal connection with somebody else, while the future-focused words give this connection some permanence. A clear example is: "I will always love you." The acoustic character of the music allows one to focus and emphasize the lyrics. The emotions listeners experience when experiencing consolation or when crying over music have recently been linked to prosocial behavior and processes underlying social connections. Our findings can prove useful in the field of mood-regulation through music, and the general understanding of consolation. _ Muziek en emoties zijn onlosmakelijk met elkaar verbonden. Het gegeven dat het luisteren naar muziek emoties oproept bij luisteraars, is een reden waarom mensen zich vaak tot muziek wenden om hun stemming te verbeteren of om uiting te geven aan wat zij voelen. Hoewel het luisteren naar muziek kan troosten, is er nog weinig systematisch onderzoek gedaan naar hoe muziek troost biedt. Deze dissertatie onderzoekt de troostende eigenschappen van muziek en gedrag dat daarmee samenhangt, waaronder huilen met muziek. Uit ons onderzoek blijkt dat muziek luisteren een van de belangrijkste manieren is om je getroost te voelen, meer nog dan bijvoorbeeld steun zoeken bij anderen, eten of in tranen uitbarsten. Het is bovendien een zeer persoonlijke, intieme aangelegenheid, die plaatsvindt wanneer men alleen is en volgt op het ervaren van persoonlijk verlies, bijvoorbeeld het overlijden van een dierbare of je onbegrepen te voelen. Troostliederen wekken gevoelens op van ontroering, verdriet en nostalgie, maar geven ook een gevoel van kracht en ontspanning. Luisteraars schrijven het troostende vermogen van muziek toe aan de muziek zelf (bijv. de melodie), de teksten (bij popmuziek) en de herinneringen die de muziek oproept. Het zorgt voor gevoelens van verbinding, waarbij muziek kan dienen als een begripvolle vriend. In vervolgonderzoek keken we naar een mogelijke samenhang tussen emotioneel eten en diverse manieren van stemmingsregulatie door middel van het luisteren naar muziek, waaronder troost en ontlading. We vonden geen samenhang tussen emotioneel eten en troost, maar wel tussen emotioneel eten en ontlading. Ontlading is het ventileren van emoties door bijvoorbeeld naar harde muziek te luisteren en lijkt tegenovergesteld te zijn aan troost. Huilen met muziek komt veel voor, gebeurt meestal wanneer men alleen is, is doorgaans kort van duur en gaat gepaard met vochtige ogen en wat snikken. Luisteraars ervaren vooral ontroering, verdriet, nostalgie en machteloosheid en schrijven hun tranen toe aan droevige herinneringen, de muziek zelf, nostalgie en de teksten. Vrouwen huilen vaker en intenser bij muziek dan mannen, maar de sekseverschillen die doorgaans gerapporteerd worden in regulier huilonderzoek zijn kleiner wanneer muziek in het spel is. Die kleinere verschillen ziet men normaliter bij zeer emotionele situaties van blijdschap of verdriet (bruiloft, geboorte, overlijden). Tot slot vergeleken we de tekstuele en muzikale eigenschappen van veelgebruikte Nederlands- en Engelstalige begrafenismuziek met populaire hits van dezelfde artiesten. Begrafenismuziek klinkt droeviger, is minder energiek en vaker akoestisch dan populaire muziek. Bovendien is begrafenismuziek vaker in majeur. Er is dus sprake van een mix van positieve en negatieve gevoelens die we eerder vonden bij muziek als troost en huilen met muziek, en ook terugzien in de teksten. De emotionele toon van de teksten is namelijk veelal positief, met minder negatieve woorden dan positieve. Het merendeel van die negatieve woorden drukt verdriet uit. Interessante verschillen zitten er in het gebruik van tweede persoons voornaamwoorden (je, jij, jouw) en toekomstgerichte werkwoorden. Die vonden we namelijk meer bij begrafenismuziek. Deze voornaamwoorden drukken een verbinding met iemand anders uit, terwijl de toekomstgerichte woorden deze relatie iets blijvends geven. Denk bijvoorbeeld aan "I will always love you." Het akoestische karakter van de muziek zorgt ervoor dat de nadruk op deze teksten kan worden gelegd. De emoties die luisteraars ervaren wanneer ze huilen met muziek of wanneer ze getroost worden, zijn recent in verband gebracht met prosociaal gedrag en sociale verbindingsprocessen. Onze bevindingen kunnen nuttig zijn op het gebied van stemmingsregulatie via muziek en het algemene begrip van troost

The Human Faculty for Music: What's special about it?

Abstract (short version) This thesis presents a model of a narrow faculty for music - qualities that are at once universally present and operational in music across cultures whilst also being specific to our species and to the domain of music. The comparative approach taken focuses on core psychological and physiological capabilities that root and enable appropriate engagement with music rather than on their observable physical correlates. Configurations of musical pulse; musical tone; and musical motivation are described as providing a sustained attentional structure for managing personal experience and interpersonal interaction and as offering a continually renewing phenomenological link between the immediate past, the perceptual present and future expectation. Constituent parts of the narrow faculty for music are considered most fundamentally as a potentiating, quasi-architectural framework in which our most central affective and socio-intentional drives are afforded extended time, stability, and a degree of abstraction, intensity, focus and meaning. The author contends, therefore, that music's defining characteristics, specific functionalities and/or situated efficacies are not demarcated in broadly termed “musical” qualities such as melodic contour or rhythm or in those surprisingly elusive “objective facts” of musical structure. Rather they are solely the attentional/motivational frameworks which root our faculty to make and make sense of music. Our generic capacities for culture and the manifold uses of action, gesture, and sound to express and induce emotion; to regulate affective states; to create or reflect meaning; to signify; to ritualize; coordinate; communicate; interrelate; embody; entrain; and/or intentionalize, none of these is assessed as being intrinsically unique to music performance. Music is, instead, viewed as an ordered expression of human experience, behaviour, interaction, and vitality, all shaped, shared, given significance, and/or transformed in time. The relevance of this model to topical debates on music and evolution is discussed and the author contends that the perspective offered affords significant implications for our understanding of why music is evidently and remarkably effective in certain settings and in the pursuit of certain social, individual, and therapeutic goals.Cambridge University Millennium Fun

The role of engagement and visual imagery in music listening

This thesis investigates music' responses to a selection of complete nineteenth and twentieth century piano works, with respect to their levels of musical engagement (heightened attention and interest towards the music; Olsen, Dean & Stevens, 2014) and their experience of music-induced visual imagery. Although engagement and visual imagery have been increasingly explored over the past two decades, little work has investigated the relationship between the two. Potential links, however, exist: for instance, the way visual imagery is described as one of the key mechanisms underlying listeners' emotional responses to music (Juslin et al., 2013). This thesis draws upon three different methodological approaches: two exploratory studies empirically investigate listeners' responses quantitatively, as well as qualitatively; the third study, a self-reflective account, draws upon the researcher's personal visual imagery experience as a performer.In the two empirical studies, listeners provided continuous self-report measures of their engagement with the music, as well as the occurrence of any visual imagery during listening. Time series analyses revealed that engagement with the music was significantly associated with the experience of visual imagery; this was the case in both Studies 1 and 2. Granger causality tests were carried out to investigate the details of this relationship: overall, engagement mostly predicted visual imagery in Study 1; whilst a bidirectional relation of the series emerged more frequently in Study 2. In both studies, however, differences according to the piece and to the musical experience of the listener were apparent. A selection of listeners' individual differences (such as musical experience) are also reported, with respect to engagement and visual imagery responses. A thematic analysis of the qualitative data, collected through free written annotations and face-to-face interviews, led to the emergence of nine broad ‘visual imagery types’: (1) Arbitrary, (2) Shared Musical Topics, (3) Idiosyncratic Sound Associations, (4) Emotions, (5) Material Abstraction, (6) Narratives, (7) Performance, (8) Personal Recollections, and (9) Pictorial Associations. Examples of each category, alongside insights into the diverse range of imagery experiences, are provided. Finally, the self- reflective account explores visual imagery from a different perspective: the performer as listener. A pianist's visual imagery experiences are investigated across two contexts: the practice of a piano- duet work, comparing imagery data with that of a second pianist; and practising from memory, exploring the way imagery experiences may change with the absence of the score. Links to the qualitative ‘visual imagery types’ model are drawn throughout this exploration

Restoring Functions of Christian Worship: An Examination of the Impacts of Biblical Musical Meditation on Anxiety

Based on diagnostic interview data from the National Comorbidity Study Replication (NCS-R), an estimated 31.1% of U.S. adults experience anxiety at some time in their lives. This project outlines a mixed-methods research that examines the impact of music and Scripture, and illustrates the experiences of multiple individuals experiencing situational anxiety. For fifteen minutes, for seven days, the three groups listened to a cycle of three songs that depicted calming instrumental music, general worship music with promising themes, and positive lyrics or songs with lyrics based on Scripture. The three groups received varying treatments of music while completing a modified version of the Hamilton Anxiety Scale before and after. The results of the study demonstrate the impact Scripture lyrics have on each individual’s thinking and suggest that music with Scripture decreases general anxiety. The work is necessary because it illustrates the impact lyrics have on one’s thoughts and mind. The study also demonstrates how music, in combination with Scripture can improve one’s overall physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health

Empathy as an answer for the tragedy paradox in music

O apelo de motivos trágicos nas artes constitui um paradoxo que remonta à Antiguidade clássica, aplicado sobretudo no âmbito das artes dramáticas, denominado Paradoxo da Tragédia. Aristóteles foi o primeiro filósofo a elaborar uma resposta para o mesmo baseada na purgação de emoções negativas do espectador pela sua experiência em contextos ficcionadas, o qual designou de catarse. O objectivo deste trabalho foi resolver o mesmo paradoxo no âmbito da música com motivos trágicos, ou seja, capaz de evocar emoções negativas - em especial a tristeza -, através de explicações conversoras , que consideram que a experiência de emoções negativas é convertida em experiências psicologicamente recompensadoras. Considerando a catarse uma proposta coerente com as explicações conversoras, o trabalho propôs-se a oferecer uma versão adaptável à música. Tendo em conta a relação estabelecida na literatura entre a apreciação de música triste e disposição individual de traços de empatia, esta foi considerada como uma capacidade importante para a resolução do referido paradoxo. Contudo, como é possível que a empatia explique tal conversão? Como empatizar com a música? Para perseguir o objectivo acima descrito, estabeleceram-se duas questões de pesquisa fundamentais que dividiram o trabalho em duas partes: Como é que uma experiência empática permite experienciar emoções negativas através da música? e Como é que a empatia pode explicar um processo catártico na música ? Na primeira parte do trabalho foi elaborada uma confirmação da evocação de sentimentos negativos através da música, indispensável para defender a explicação mencionada, produzida por mecanismos de empatia emocional ( contágio emocional ) ou cognitiva ( imaginação ), caso a resposta tenha origem nas características acústicas da música ou no significado da letra. Além disso, foi destacado o papel dos neurónios-espelho na ponte entre a percepção de emoções na música e a sua apreciação. Na segunda parte do trabalho foi atribuída a exclusiva responsabilidade das recompensas psicológicas aos mecanismos de empatia cognitiva , gerando recompensas com origem no próprio processo empático e na falta de implicações reais associadas com a tristeza provocada pela música. Tais recompensas compõe o processo catártico que leva à purificação de emoções negativas do ouvinte e justifica as suas motivações para ouvir música triste . Para o futuro, sugere-se que seja explorada a relação entre mecanismos homeostáticos de regulação de emoções e da empatia cognitiva, a fim de gerar um melhor entendimento sobre a capacidade de empatizar, bem como, sobre o papel da música como potenciador de tal capacidade, tão importante para as interações humanas a diversos níveis da sociedade.The appeal of tragic motifs in the arts constitutes a paradox already discussed in Classical Antiquity, above all, in the field of dramatic arts, the known Tragedy Paradox. Aristotle was the first philosopher answering to it through a proposal based on the purging of the negative emotions of the spectator stemmed from the experience of such emotions in fictional contexts, a process called of catharsis . The aim of this work is to solve the same paradox applied to music with tragic motives, i.e. able to evoke negative emotions - especially sadness - through conversionary explanations , which consider that the experience of negative emotions is converted into a psychological rewarding one. Considering catharsis a proposal coherent with such explanations, the work proposes a cathartic process applicable to music. Considering the relationship established in the literature between the personal trait of empathy and the appreciation of sad music, empathy was considered as the key capacity to solve the paradox. However, how to empathize with music? How would empathy explain such conversion? To pursue the objectives described above, two fundamental research questions were established to accomplish such goal: How does an empathic experience allow us to experience negative emotions through music? and How does empathy explain a cathartic process in music? In the first part of the work, it was confirmed the evocation of negative feelings through music indispensable to defend the mentioned explanation, considered to be generated by mechanisms of emotional empathy ( emotional contagion ) or cognitive empathy ( imagination ), whether the emotional response is originated from the acoustic features of music or from the meaning of the letter. Moreover, it was highlighted the role of mirror-neuron system in the link between the perception of emotions in the music and its appreciation. In the second part of the work, it was attributed exclusive responsibility to cognitive empathy mechanisms for the generation psychological rewards, which generate rewards either from the empathic process itself and the lack of real-world implications associated with the sadness-evoked by the music. Such rewards comprise the cathartic process that leads to the purification of listeners’ negative emotions and justifies their motivations to listen to sad music. For the future, it is suggested to explore the relationship between homeostatic mechanisms of emotion regulation and cognitive empathy , in order to generate a better understanding of the ability to empathize, as well as the role of music as a potentiator of such important ability for the core human interactions within society