Applied Psychology in Music

[ujos3]

Hi

Recently there has been an Special Issue of the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology on "Music Cognition and Performance".

I post below some of the articles abstracts. They look very interesting (the second one mostly):

"
Expectancy Effects in Memory for Melodies
Mark A. Schmuckler

Two experiments explored the relation between melodic expectancy and melodic memory. In Experiment 1, listeners rated the degree to which different endings confirmed their expectations for a set of melodies. After providing these expectancy ratings, listeners received a recognition memory test in which they discriminated previously heard melodies from new melodies. Recognition memory in this task positively correlated with perceived expectancy, and was related to the estimated tonal coherence of these melodies. Experiment 2 extended these results, demonstrating better recognition memory for high expectancy melodies, relative to medium and low expectancy melodies. This experiment also observed asymmetrical memory confusions as a function of perceived expectancy. These findings fit with a model of musical memory in which schematically central events are better remembered than schematically peripheral events.
"
"
An Exploratory Study of Musical Emotions and Psychophysiology
Carol L. Krumhansl

A basic issue about musical emotions concerns whether music elicits emotional responses in listeners (the ‘emotivist’ position) or simply expresses emotions that listeners recognize in the music (the ‘cognitivist’ position). To address this, psychophysiological measures were recorded while listeners heard two excerpts chosen to represent each of three emotions: sad, fear, and happy. The measures covered a fairly wide spectrum of cardiac, vascular, electrodermal, and respiratory functions. Other subjects indicated dynamic changes in emotions they experienced while listening to the music on one of four scales: sad, fear, happy, and tension. Both physiological and emotion judgments were made on a second-by-second basis. The physiological measures all showed a significant effect of music compared to the pre-music interval. A number of analyses, including correlations between physiology and emotion judgments, found significant differences among the excerpts. The sad excerpts produced the largest changes in heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance and temperature. The fear excerpts produced the largest changes in blood transit time and amplitude. The happy excerpts produced the largest changes in the measures of respiration. These emotion-specific physiological changes only partially replicated those found for non- musical emotions. The physiological effects of music observed generally support the emotivist view of musical emotions.
"

[ted]

I'm not sure I fully understand the thrust of the first article at all. Either I'm dense or the description is poor.

The second is expressed very verbosely but after five minutes I think I understand it. I would have thought it perfectly obvious that music elicits real emotions and not just logically perceived ones, and I cannot see any sense in what she terms the "cognitive" position at all. There is such a thing as analytical listening, but I don't think she means that here. But surely we are at liberty to turn our emotions on or off as we please. Indeed, we are free to make any mental associations with music we hear because it is totally abstract.

I can't help feeling that like many notions in psychology (I heard a lot about it because my son majored in it) the experiment doesn't give the individual enough credit for having any brains. It shows that such emotion as is elicited in listeners ( and I would prefer to say such emotion as the listeners CHOOSE to elicit in themselves) is probably real. Not really such a shattering conclusion is it ?

Then the whole issue is confused by whether certain responses (sadness etc) are "hardwired" into musical syntax or chosen, unconsciously or consciously, on the basis of habit and social conditioning, by the listener. This is actually a much deeper and more interesting question, but I'm not sure how an experiment could be devised to test it.

[pianonut]

i agree with Ted about not giving credit sometimes to our own individuality (and not always lumped into an experimental situation) and brains.

But, i am interested to the extent that 'classical music' seems to be used more often in music therapy than 'modern and post-modern.'  this would validate what these articles seem to say - achieving mental peace and melodic memory at the same time.

[pianonut]

makes me think of those tapes that are made for 'expanding your baby's brain.'  they always use classical music, too.

for pianists, i think the expansion of melodic memory goes much further, because we are practiced.  therefore, doing an experiment like this would produce different results, probably than with people who are not musicians.  we like to hear unexpected things because we have heard so much of the expected.  we might remember something unusual about the unexpected MORE than a predicted outcome.  good musicians don't second guess the endings (i think) and just let the music take them where it is going.  just went to hear a marimba concerto (and though i don't remember a lot of the melody) and found it a very uplifiting experience but couldn't predict the intervals in each hand let alone where they were going.  It was 'concertino for marimba' by Paul Creston played by Angela Zator Nelson.

[ted]

Yes, that's a good point, Pianonut. Some people like music to surprise them but some do not, and are reassured by conventional forms, chords, cadences and so on. I most decidedly have always belonged to the former group, which is probably part of why I like improvisation so much.

[lostinidlewonder]

What the heck is "asymmetrical memory confusions" 

[ujos3]

What the heck is "asymmetrical memory confusions"

I think they mean that in melodies with different perceived expectance memories people had different (more or less) levels of confusion (or inaccuracy); acuracy of memory is then asymmetric related to the perceived expectancy. That is, I suppose, that melodies with more "standard" endings were in general better reminded.

I found the physical comments in the second article very interesting: you breath better when you hear mozart K331 (the major variations) than when you hear funebre march (the minor melody). In that one you feel your temperature increased, your pulse rate increases, etc. 

Weird and funny