Mozart Effect in Musical Fit? A Commentary on Yeoh & North

Musical fit, the congruence between music and product leading to improved response, is presented as an explanation of differences in recall of food items from two cultures. Musical fit predicts that, in this case, more Indian food items would be recalled when Indian music was playing, and more Malay food items would be recalled when Malay music was played. The underlining premise of this prediction is priming (the music primes memories of associated food items, facilitating recall). The testing was performed using three ethnic groups of participants, Indian, Malay, and Chinese. The priming effects were only identified among the Chinese group. A reanalysis of the data presented here indicates that the overall recall of food items is best facilitated by Indian music, regardless of whether the food item is Indian or Malay, and further, each ethnicity reported more items in the Indian music condition. The Mozart effect was also based on the premise of priming activation and was later debunked in favor of an arousal-mood hypothesis. This commentary discusses whether arousal-mood, a more generalized activation leading to improved performance than priming, might better explain the results. While priming and congruence more plausibly explains musical fit than the Mozart effect, the possibility of testing other hypotheses are considered worthwhile

Unexpected Aspects of Expectancy in Music: A Spreading Activation Explanation

A well agreed discourse in music perception research is that affective response can be generated by music when a tendency in the music is delayed or inhibited. There is a consensus that this tendency is statistically driven, derived from exposure to culturally situated musical idioms. By presenting a neural-network inspired spreading activation model (SAM) this paper argues that the nature of the tendency is worthy of further investigation. SAM organises the music stream perceived by the listener continuously into segments such that a match with an existing ‘mental representation’ (node) is found, which is then linked to the node for the previously segmented part of the music stream, with the link between these nodes strengthening and consolidating with exposure. The currently activated segment (the music being sounded) will prime the best matching (strongest linked) node available, generating expectancy. Expectancy is defined as the most strongly primed segment, and emerges dynamically through experience with environmental and musical contexts, rather than schematic or prototypical means. Expectancy is the specific exemplar instance that the activated (currently sounding) segment of music and contextual factors prime. This hypothesis of veridical dominance has implications for enduring aspects of music expectancy theory: (1) individual experiences matter in the formation of expectations; (2) expectations are a dynamic process, that change and are updated with experience; (3) context plays a critical role in expectancy; and (4) schema, prototypes and statistical accounts of expectation should be treated as convenient approximations of underlying cognitive processes

Negative Emotion in Music: What is the Attraction? A Qualitative Study

Why do people listen to music that evokes negative emotions? This paper presents five comparative interviews conducted to examine this question. Individual differences psychology and mood management theory provided a theoretical framework for the investigation which was conducted under a realist paradigm. Data sources were face-to-face interviews of about one hour involving a live music listening experience. Thematic analysis of the data was conducted and both within-case and cross-case analyses were performed. Results confirmed the complexity of variables at play in individual cases while supporting the hypothesis that absorption and dissociation make it possible for the arousal experienced when listening to sad music to be enjoyed without displeasure. At the same time, participants appeared to be seeking a variety of psychological benefits such as reflecting on life-events, enjoying emotional communion, or engaging in a process of catharsis. A novel finding was that maladaptive mood regulation habits may cause some to listen to sad music even when such benefits are not being obtained, supporting some recent empirical evidence on why people are attracted to negative emotion in music

Imaginative enrichment produces higher preference for unusual music than historical framing : a literature review and two empirical studies

Does accompanying information (“framing”) such as in a program note influence our preference for music? To date the findings have been mixed, although a small body of research has suggested that when framing accompanies music considered unusual (characterized by extreme complexity and extreme unfamiliarity), the music may be preferred compared to when no such framing occurs. A literature review (study 1) revealed that for 50% of experiments where valenced framing (positive versus negative suggestions of prestige) was manipulated, positive framing was accompanied by significantly higher ratings of preference and/or quality judgements. However, only one example contained music that could be considered unusual (atonal music). We therefore conducted two follow-up experiments, with each examining the influence of valenced framing as well as historical framing (accompanying historical details) for music intended to be unusual. Study 2 manipulated framing for an excerpt using atonal music, although we were unable to find evidence that positively valenced historical framing increased preference for this piece. A surprising finding in study 2 was that our active control—requiring the participant to engage imaginatively with the music—produced a significant increase in preference. Subsequently, in study 3 we examined the same three framing conditions and included both an unusual excerpt (free jazz) as well as an over-familiar, typical excerpt for comparison (being a repeatedly pre-exposed classical piano piece). Study 3 produced no significant differences in preference ratings between the two historical conditions, although a positive impact of imagination was again evident. We concluded that the impact of historical framing may be highly subjective and not of favorable consequence to the typical listener. Furthermore, while imaginative engagement appears a fruitful avenue for further preference research, it has been largely ignored

Charge frustration in complex fluids and in electronic systems

The idea of charge frustration is applied to describe the properties of such diverse physical systems as oil-water-surfactant mixtures and metal-ammonia solutions. The minimalist charge-frustrated model possesses one energy scale and two length scales. For oil-water-surfactant mixtures, these parameters have been determined starting from the microscopic properties of the physical systems under study. Thus microscopic properties are successfully related to the observed mesoscopic structure.Comment: latex type, 13 page

Unexpected Aspects of Expectancy in Music: A Spreading Activation Explanation

A well agreed discourse in music perception research is that affective response can be generated by music when a tendency in the music is delayed or inhibited. There is a consensus that this tendency is statistically driven, derived from exposure to culturally situated musical idioms. By presenting a neural-network inspired spreading activation model (SAM) this paper argues that the nature of the tendency is worthy of further investigation. SAM organises the music stream perceived by the listener continuously into segments such that a match with an existing ‘mental representation’ (node) is found, which is then linked to the node for the previously segmented part of the music stream, with the link between these nodes strengthening and consolidating with exposure. The currently activated segment (the music being sounded) will prime the best matching (strongest linked) node available, generating expectancy. Expectancy is defined as the most strongly primed segment, and emerges dynamically through experience with environmental and musical contexts, rather than schematic or prototypical means. Expectancy is the specific exemplar instance that the activated (currently sounding) segment of music and contextual factors prime. This hypothesis of veridical dominance has implications for enduring aspects of music expectancy theory: (1) individual experiences matter in the formation of expectations; (2) expectations are a dynamic process, that change and are updated with experience; (3) context plays a critical role in expectancy; and (4) schema, prototypes and statistical accounts of expectation should be treated as convenient approximations of underlying cognitive processes

Emotion in Popular Music: A Psychological Perspective

This article discusses the role of emotion in popular music from a psychological perspective. An online study was conducted in which 100 young adults made emotion ratings of loved and hated pieces of music. While the literature presents us with some ambiguous views about the function and value of emotion in popular music, the results of the study suggest that for listeners, emotion in popular music is as important as that reported in other musical forms, such as high-art (classical) music, where emotion is considered by many scholars to be more unambiguously important. However, overall popular music was reported to both express and evoke lower passive emotion ratings than high-art music. A corollary of the study is that popular music could be defined by frequency of reported enjoyment of spontaneously selected pieces. As a result Chopin becomes a popular music composer to the same extent that Lady Gaga is a popular performer. The results of the study are interpreted from a psychological perspective, calling upon mere exposure theory to explain how music becomes popular from a listener’s cognitive perspective, and dissociation theory, to explain why negative emotion in popular music can be enjoyed.Cet article parle du rôle de l’émotion dans les musiques populaires. Une étude fut conduite en ligne auprès de 100 jeunes adultes, leur demandant d’évaluer l’émotion ressentie à l’écoute de morceaux qu’ils aimaient et détestaient. Alors que la littérature consacrée à la question nous offre des vues ambiguës sur la fonction et la valeur de l’émotion associée aux musiques populaires, les résultats de cette enquête suggèrent que pour les auditeurs, l’émotion ressentie à l’écoute des musiques populaires est aussi forte et importante que celle associée à d’autres formes musicales, telle que la musique savante. Pourtant, les réponses indiquent que les musiques populaires expriment et évoquent des émotions moins passives que les musiques savantes. Les résultats sont interprétés à partir d’une perspective psychologique, se référant à l’effet de simple exposition afin d’expliquer en quoi une musique est considérée comme populaire dans la perspective cognitive de l’auditeur, et à la théorie de la dissociation afin d’expliquer en quoi des émotions négatives peuvent être appréciées

Mozart is still blue: a comparison of sensory and verbal scales to describe qualities in music

An experiment was carried out in order to assess the use of non-verbal sensory scales for evaluating perceived music qualities, by comparing them with the analogous verbal scales. Participants were divided into two groups; one group (SV) completed a set of non-verbal scales responses and then a set of verbal scales responses to short musical extracts. A second group (VS) completed the experiment in the reverse order. Our hypothesis was that the ratings of the SV group can provide information unmediated (or less mediated) by verbal association in a much stronger way than the VS group. Factor analysis performed separately on the SV group, the VS group and for all participants shows a recurring patterning of the majority of sensory scales versus the verbal scales into different factors. Such results suggest that the sensory scale items are indicative of a different semantic structure than the verbal scales in describing music, and so they are indexing different qualities (perhaps ineffable), making them potentially special contributors to understanding musical experience

Personality and Computer Music

(Abstract to follow

Attraction to Sad Music: The Role of Imagery, Absorption, and Rumination

Previous studies have identified links between attraction to negative emotion in music with the traits of absorption and rumination. However, no studies have examined the possible interdependencies and influences of these traits. We sought to determine whether a cognitive processing path that leads to attraction to sad music could be identified. We argued that auditory imagery might be an interesting competency to add to the investigation because of the links between imagery and absorption. Participants completed validated surveys measuring the three target cognitive measures, as well as a Like Sad Music Scale. Mediation analysis revealed that absorption mediated imagery in response to sad music, as predicted, and rumination predicted attraction to sad music independently of the other traits. Suggestions for expanding the cognitive process path are proposed, including further investigation of the possible central role of absorption. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved