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A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Perception of Emotion in Music

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A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Perception of Emotion in Music A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Perception of Emotion in Music: Psychophysical and Cultural Cues Author(s): Laura-Lee Balkwill and William Forde Thompson Source: Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Fall, 1999), pp. 43-64 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40285811 . Accessed: 15/10/2014 16:19 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.132.173.158 on Wed, 15 Oct 2014 16:19:39 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Music Perception © 1999 by the regents of the Fall 1999, Vol. 17, No. 1, 43-64 university of California A Cross-CulturalInvestigation of the Perceptionof Emotion in Music: Psychophysicaland CulturalCues LAURA-LEE BALKWILL & WILLIAM FORDE THOMPSON AtkinsonCollege, YorkUniversity Studiesof the link betweenmusic and emotion have primarilyfocused on listeners'sensitivity to emotionin the musicof theirown culture.This sensitivitymay reflectlisteners' enculturation to the conventionsof their culture's tonal system. However, it may also reflect responses to psychophysicaldimensions of soundthat are independentof musicalex- perience.A model of listeners'perception of emotion in music is pro- posed in which emotionin music is communicatedthrough a combina- tion of universaland culturalcues. Listenersmay rely on eitherof these cues, or both, to arriveat an understandingof musicallyexpressed emo- tion. The currentstudy addressed the hypothesesderived from this model using a cross-culturalapproach. The following questionswere investi- gated:Can peopleidentify the intendedemotion in musicfrom an unfa- miliartonal system?If they can, is theirsensitivity to intendedemotions associatedwith perceivedchanges in psychophysicaldimensions of mu- sic?Thirty Western listeners rated the degreeof joy, sadness,anger, and peacein 12 Hindustaniraga excerpts (field recordings obtained in North India).In accordancewith the raga-rasasystem, each excerpt was in- tendedto conveyone of the four moods or "rasas"that correspondedto the four emotionsrated by listeners.Listeners also providedratings of fourpsychophysical variables: tempo, rhythmic complexity, melodic com- plexity,and pitch range. Listeners were sensitive to the intendedemotion in ragas when that emotion was joy, sadness,or anger.Judgments of emotion were significantlyrelated to judgmentsof psychophysicaldi- mensions,and, in some cases,to instrumenttimbre. The findingssuggest thatlisteners are sensitive to musicallyexpressed emotion in an unfamiliar tonalsystem, and that this sensitivityis facilitatedby psychophysicalcues. ReceivedNov. 2, 1998; acceptedfor publicationApr. 28, 1999. is generallyagreed that humans tend to make associations between emotion and music, but many questionsremain as to the natureof these associations.For example,although it is well establishedthat people make similar judgmentswhen they are asked to describemusically expressed Addresscorrespondence to Laura-LeeBalkwill or WilliamForde Thompson, Depart- mentof Psychology,Atkinson College, York University, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3,Canada, (e-mail:[email protected] or [email protected]) 43 This content downloaded from 130.132.173.158 on Wed, 15 Oct 2014 16:19:39 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 44 Laura-Lee Balkwill & William Forde Thompson emotion (Behrens& Green, 1993; Dolgin & Adelson, 1990; Gabrielsson & Juslin, 1996; Gerardi& Gerken, 1995; Haack, 1980; Kratus, 1993; Robazza,Macluso, &cD'Urso, 1994; Terwogt&c van Grinsven,1991; Th- ompson & Robitaille, 1992), it is not known to what extent these judg- ments are based on knowledgeof culturalconventions or on basic percep- tual cues that transcendcultural boundaries. Sometheorists favor an enculturationexplanation - that musicalmean- ing is determinedexclusively by culturalconvention (Blacking, 1973; Feld & Keil, 1994; Walker,1996). These theorists may acknowledgecertain universalsin music, such as octave equivalence(Dowling &cHarwood, 1986), but they assume that the interpretationof emotional meaningin musicis determinedsolely by enculturationto a specifictonal system.Feld and Keil (1994, p. 85) providean exampleof this perspective:"All musical sound structuresare socially structuredin two senses:they exist through socialconstruction, and they acquire meaning through social interpretation." Empiricalevaluation of this issuehas beencomplicated by the unicultural focus of previousresearch.1 With few exceptions(Deva &cVirmani, 1975; Gregory&c Varney, 1996; Hoshino, 1996), the existing researchon emo- tional meaningin music has focusedon music from the Westerntonal sys- tem and on the judgmentsof Westernlisteners. This body of researchdoes not, therefore,provide a basis for evaluatingthe enculturationhypothesis of the perceptionof emotion in music. Althoughno one would denythe influenceof cultureon individuals'judg- mentsof emotionin music,there may also be universalinfluences underly- ing musicallyexpressed emotion. In additionto the conventionsof a spe- cifictonal system, listeners may be influencedby variationsin psychophysical dimensionsof music, such as tempo, timbre,and stimuluscomplexity. For our purposes, a psychophysicaldimension will be defined as any propertyof sound that can be perceivedindependent of musical experi- ence, knowledge,or enculturation.For example,speed of pulse, or tempo, is a psychophysicaldimension, whereas a perfectcadence is not. Complex- ity is also a psychophysicaldimension, because judgments of complexity do not rely on familiaritywith the stimulus.Early studies of experimental aestheticsrevealed that judgmentsof complexity are strongly influenced by such factors as the number of elements perceived,and the degree of informationredundancy (for a review,see Berlyne,1971). Such variables can be manipulatedin unfamiliaror otherwisemeaningless stimulus pat- terns (e.g., random dot patterns),resulting in reliablechanges in judged complexity. A numberof studies have reportedstrong relationshipsbetween emo- tional judgmentsand psychophysicaldimensions such as tempo, timbre, 1. The term "uni-cultural" refers to studies in which the listeners and the music stimuli are of the same culture. This content downloaded from 130.132.173.158 on Wed, 15 Oct 2014 16:19:39 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Emotion in Music 45 and loudness(Behrens & Green,1993; Gabrielsson& Juslin,1996; Gerardi &CGerken, 1995). Otherevidence suggests that increasesin perceivedcom- plexity may be associatedwith arousal responses (Berlyne,1971, p. 69) and shifts in aestheticevaluation (Day, 1967, 1968; Vitz, 1966b). These dimensionsof musicare not culture-specific,and hence,they may function as universalcues for the emotionalevaluation of all auditorystimuli. Al- though the basis for such evaluationsis unknown, they may have origi- natedas adaptiveresponses to acousticinput - for example,to threatening and nonthreateningsounds. A Model of the Perception of Emotion in Music Studiesof the perceptionof unfamiliarmusic have illustratedthat listen- ers who are unfamiliarwith a musicalidiom are nonethelessable to appre- hend structuralaspects of that music by attendingto basic statisticalprop- erties.Without knowledge of the stylisticconventions of the music,listeners attend to the statisticaldistribution of pitches as one way of interpreting North Indianmusic (Castellano,Bharucha &c Krumhansl, 1984), Balinese music (Kessler,Hansen, &cShepard, 1984), and artificialtonalities (Oram & Cuddy,1995). These findingsillustrate that listenersare highly adapt- able in their abilityto interpretunfamiliar musical styles. It is reasonableto assume that the perceptionof emotion in music is similarlyadaptable. Consciously or intuitively,composers and performers may draw upon basic perceptualcues (in the form of psychophysicaldi- mensions of music) as well as culturallydetermined conventions, to ex- press emotion in music. Listeners,in turn, may attend to either of these sourcesof emotionalmeaning. Because emotion is conveyedthrough both culture-specificand perceptualcues, there is often redundancyin how a piece reinforcesa specificemotion. The more cues that are presentin the music- both culture-specificand perceptual- the strongerthe expression of emotion.Thus, listeners'understanding of the musicallyexpressed emo- tion shouldbe affectedboth by theirfamiliarity with the conventionsof the tonal systemand also by their sensitivityto basic perceptualcues. In Figure1, we presenta model of how listenersattend to the cultural and universalcues embeddedin a piece of music to arrive at an under- standingof musicallyexpressed emotion. The expressionof emotionin the music of a given culture should be most salient to listenersof the same culture,due to the sharedunderstanding of the conventionalrepresenta- tion of emotion within that tonal system. Whenfamiliar cultural cues are absent,the listenermust pay moreatten- tion to basic
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