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What is the Impact of Music on emotions?, Colour Key: - Coggle Diagram
What is the Impact of Music on emotions?
EMOTIONS
def:
An emotion can be defined in a variety of ways concerning its function and biological significance, given its subjective nature.
Extrapolated from these definition, there is a consensus that emotions are physiological and psychological responses to stimuli that exist for a functional purpose.
There are six main emotions which humans experience.
Disgust
Anger
Fear
Surprise
Sadness
Happiness
Stimulus
def:
Actions, acts or procedures which elicit a reaction from the human mind. (Biology Articles, Tutorials & Dictionary Online, 2020)
Stimuli originate from one of the 5 senses, encapsulating visual, gustatory, tactile, auditory & olfactory experiences. As such, this includes:
Music
Repulsive taste
A scary or disturbing image
A bad smell
A friend being kind
The Emotional Response to a Stimulus can be informed by its nature or our prior experiences with it, positive or negative (Johnson-Laird and Oatley, 2021).
The Berkeley Wellbeing Institute defines an emotion emotions are biological states that come about as a result of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. (The Berkeley Well-Being Institute, 2017)
The Britannica Encyclopaedia defines an emotion as an experience of consciousness entailing a bodily sensation reflecting a subjective significance of a stimulus. (Emotion | Definition, Examples, Scope, Structures, & Facts | Britannica, 2023)
The American Psychological Association defines emotions conscious mental reactions subjectively experienced, accompanied by physiological and behavioural changes. (Emotions, 2022)
MUSIC'S IMPACT ON EMOTIONS
Music is a stimulus as defined above; as such, it can evoke an emotional response through a variety of methods.
Psychological:
Johnson-Laird & Oakley proposed a three-part theory as to how
poetry
warrants emotional responses, and these three pathways can be broadly applied to music as well. (Johnson-Laird and Oatley, 2022)
The Mental Model:
This "simulation" concerns the subject matter of the work. A song about a particularly sombre situation will evoke sadness as the human brain can understand and picture themselves in an evocative context, tying a fictional situation to a real-life emotion.
Prosody:
Prosody, or the patterns of rhythm and sound in a poem, can be used to replicate human emotional responses and evoke empathetic reactions from the reader. This can be executed similarly in music, where the delivery of a song may be particularly emotional e.g Lana Del Rey's performance in her song Dealer, where the chorus is sung in a pained falsetto that elicits a strong emotional response.
Aesthetics
The experience of consuming music itself may evoke certain emotions. In this "simulation", the personal state of being at the time of consumption (environment, prior emotions, mode of listening" has an impact on the emotional responses undergone.
Biological/Physiological:
There are various ways the body may have physiological responses to a stimulus.
Heart Rate/Pace of Respiration:
In the body, the processing of music's tempo and rhythm occurs towards the brain stem, in a similar region to respiration and heart rate. As such, higher paced music in some circumstances can accelerate the pace of bodily systems. (Harvard Health, 2018)
Crying:
Crying exists as a response to extreme sadness or happiness. Crying is induced when the limbic system, or the emotional control hub of the brain, experiences a strong emotion and signals to the lacrimal glands, positioned behind the eyes, to release tears. (Levine, 2022)
DESIGN TYPES
Experimental
Advantages:
An experimental design allows for general manipulation of most variables, and as such can lead to a more precise result than an observational design type. When discussing emotions, various triggers can be introduced by those conducting the experiment which subjects may not come across naturally, and thus more targeted hypotheses can be tested.
Disadvantages:
When dealing with emotions, ethical considerations make experimental design difficult, as it is inhumane to manipulate people's emotions to a degree which could cause mental harm. Furthermore, experimental designs don't provide a realistic depiction of life and as such can't fully replicate how the body would realistically respond to emotional stimuli.
Observational
Advantages:
The observational design type provides the best insight into the real-life responses which humans have to a variety of stimuli, while also providing data that is less influenced by those collecting it.
Disadvantages:
Given that none of the variables in an observational design can be manipulated, extraneous variables unknown to those conducting the experiment can negatively impact results, as emotional responses aren't immediately evident and can be subject to misinterpretation, especially if a subject experiencing other emotions which they aren't displaying as clearly.
Qualitative
Advantages:
Qualitative data gives the most direct insight into emotions, as they are generally clearest to those experiencing them. Self-assessment provides data which is less likely to be misinterpreted by data collators.
Disadvantages:
Qualitative data's effectiveness is directly influenced by the subject's effort and stance towards an experiment, and as such can be inaccurate. This can cause less precise results.
VARIABLES
Independent Variables
Genre of Music: Genres generally have conventions of rhythm, lyricism and depth, all of which are factors that can variously induce emotional responses.
Limitations:
Subject preferences may impact their responses to certain genres, due to inherent dislike or, conversely, familiarity.
Pace of Music: Pace can be easily measured using Beats per Minute (BPM), and thus correlation can be drawn between music pace and physiological responses.
Limitations:
Factors other than the pace of music can elicit physiological responses perhaps stronger than those which pace causes, and as such it may be difficult to establish a clear correlation if one was to exist at all.
Subject matter of Music: As mentioned, the "Mental Model" concept states that lyrics of a song can invoke the same emotions that the song's perspective was theoretically feeling, and as such songs lyrics covering subject matter of different tones may elicit different emotional responses.
Limitations:
Subjects may have prior experience with subject matter, which could lead to bias of results or forced reliving of trauma. Furthermore, some subjects may not feel the assumed way about subject matter.
Dependent Variables
Heart Rate
Limitations:
Heart rate is easily impacted by extraneous variables and doesn't necessarily reflect a specific emotion, rather a single physiological response that could be attributed to a variety of emotions.
Self-assessed emotional state before and after
Limitations:
Self-assessment of emotional state is exceedingly subjective, as one subject may have different interpretations of emotional state than the next. This would be exacerbated if the self assessment occurred on a scale.
Memory capabilities
Limitations:
Not necessarily emblematic of a specific emotional or physiological response, and also not particularly accurate given the various memory capabilities which subjects may possess.
Binary Qualitative observations
Is the subject crying?
Is the subject dancing?
Is the subject smiling?
Limitations:
Exceedingly subjective on behalf of the assessor.
Extraneous Variables
Participant Variables:
Subjects have a variety of differences that are unable to be modified and as such will impact the data by modifying the precision of data through the variety of personal experiences. These include:
History - e.g prior knowledge of the subject matter, existing associations with stimuli
Biology - e.g sex, mental disabilities, height
Mood
Situational Variables:
These extraneous variables entail the uncontrolled elements of the environment in which the study is conducted, including distractions which the whole sample may face. This often lowers the accuracy but maintains the precision of the data, as all subjects are experiencing the same environment to a degree.
Controlled Variables:
These variables are controlled by the conductor of the experiment in order to maintain a fair and accurate set of results.
Mode of listening to music
Volume
Length of excerpt
SAMPLE SIZE
Population:
Students between the ages of 16 & 17
Advantages:
Interesting insights into how music affects study, hormones also play an interesting role in physiological responses.
Disadvantages:
Younger people as a demographic have far wider musical genre preferences as the music industry expands and develops new styles, meaning that they play a larger role in affecting data.
Sample:
Year 11's at Glenunga International High School
Elderly people (specifically living with developed cognitive issues such as dementia or Alzheimer's)
Advantages:
Fascinating to see how music as a medium is able to penetrate cognitive issues and elicit emotional responses based on associations prior in life.
Disadvantages:
The elderly population is very vulnerable and those with cognitive impairment may not be able to provide informed consent.
Sample:
A group of elderly people living in an assisted care facility.
Middle Aged People (between the ages of 40 & 55)
Advantages:
As with elderly people (to a lesser degree), early life preferences and associations with music greatly change the emotional responses which a subject may feel when listening to specific genres of music.
Disadvantages:
Middle Aged People are most often occupied making a living for themselves or their families, and as such would be hard to organise.
Sample:
All workers of a company's department.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Informed Consent:
Informed consent entails the explicitly given consent for a subject to participate in a study. This can be achieved through the signature of a form or a verbal agreement, and is done in order to ensure all subjects are consenting and fully aware of the implications of the experiment.
Voluntary Participation:
All subjects must be participating in the study of their own will, and as such coercive measures such as payment should be avoided in order to ensure no party feels pressured to be involved.
Confidentiality:
Emotions are a personal subject and as such, participants may not feel inclined to have their emotional responses to stimuli being shared publicly in the study. As such, each participant should be afforded anonymity, achieved through the use of unique identification numbers)
Right to Withdraw:
All participants have the right to withdraw at any point in a study. Given that emotional stimuli may be triggering, especially given a subject's history, all participants should be afforded the opportunity to protect their mental health at any point, free of judgement.
Accurate Reporting:
This entails that all data reported in the experiment is kept accurate to the actual results gained, as otherwise the report becomes misleading and could lead to public confusion in a wider context.
Debriefing/Deception:
Given that emotional responses can be heavily influenced by prior knowledge, the end goal of the experiment is often kept confidential so as to not influence the results, As such, it is necessary that, following the experiment, all details are shared with the subjects and any possible damage is reversed.
Colour Key:
Question Deconstruction/Research
Experimental Considerations