Effects of Paintings and Music, Both Alone and in Combination, on Emotional Judgments

Abstract

Two paintings by each of three artists (Miro, Hopper, O'Keefe) and two pieces of music (Grieg, Tchaikovsky) were evaluated under three different conditions: music alone, paintings alone, combined situation of music and painting. Emotional judgments by 63 (non-specialist) subjects, mean age of 22.3 yr., were obtained using seven-point binary rating-scale questions, e.g., depressing/elevating. The emotional effects of painting and music were basically additive since significant interactions on the emotional judgments were not generally found. Significant interactions were, however, reported for the ‘goodness/badness of match’ between music and painting; specific combinations of painting and music were judged to be particularly well (or particularly badly) matched. Painting judgments were little affected by the presence of music. Music judgments were, however, more affected by the presence of paintings, especially by the complex paintings with high activity levels which were possibly acting as significant distractors.