Emotional states generated by music: An exploratory study of music experts

Abstract

A group of music experts (N = 98) were asked to report (in responding to a questionnaire) on their affective, cognitive, and physiological reactions to a piece of music they recently heard and that struck them as having produced an emotional response. In addition, participants were also asked to rate the relative importance of a list of musical and extramusical features that could have contributed to their reactions. A coding system was developed to organize and quantify the freely reported reactions. With respect to bodily symptoms, the most frequent reactions included semi-physiological variables such as tears and shivers, cardiovascular symptoms, as well as incitement to motor action such as jumping or dancing. With respect to subjective experiences or feelings, reports such as feeling nostalgic, charmed, moved, or aroused were more frequent than reports of “basic” emotions such as sadness, anger, joy, or fear. Musical structure was given the highest rating of the list of potential determinants, but technical, acoustical, and interpretational features also received high ratings. The authors discuss how these results and their conceptual elaboration can provide a guide for more systematic investigation of emotion induction via music.