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Article
Abstract. The combined interactions of mode and tempo on emotional responses to music were investigated using both self-reports and
electroencephalogram (EEG) activity. A musical excerpt was performed in three different modes and tempi. Participants rated the emotional
content of the resulting nine stimuli and their EEG activity was recorded. Musical modes influence the valence of emotion with major mode
being evaluated happier and more serene, than minor and locrian modes. In EEG frontal activity, major mode was associated with an increased
alpha activation in the left hemisphere compared to minor and locrian modes, which, in turn, induced increased activation in the right
hemisphere. The tempo modulates the arousal value of emotion with faster tempi associated with stronger feeling of happiness and anger and
this effect is associated in EEG with an increase of frontal activation in the left hemisphere. By contrast, slow tempo induced decreased frontal
activation in the left hemisphere. Some interactive effects were found between mode and tempo: An increase of tempo modulated the emotion
differently depending on the mode of the piece.
Keywords: music, emotion, EEG asymmetry, tempo, mode
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143
Methods
Participants
Sixteen nonmusicians (M = 26 years of age) were
recruited as participants (eight males and eight females).
Journal of Psychophysiology 2013; Vol. 27(3):142147
144
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Musical Stimuli
A musical piece of 36 s duration composed by a Brazilian
composer for the purpose of the study was used. The musical piece was played in three modes: Ionian (corresponding
to the major mode), Aeolian (corresponding to minor
mode), and Locrian mode. The selection of modes was
based on the difference between consonance and dissonance contents. Locrian mode can be classified as the most
dissonant mode because it is formed from a diminished
triad on the first note of the scale compared with minor,
which has a minor third and major which is the most consonant mode with a major third interval. Chord sequences
were performed in triads using traditional harmony rules,
and the melodic lines remind pleasant folk music from Brazil referred to as Choro. The musical notes were distributed
through the frequency range from 73.8 to 24.39 Hz. The
change of mode did not affect the melodic contour, the
rhythm, or the loudness of a piece. The three different mode
excerpts were played at three different tempi of 72 (slow),
100 (moderate), and 184 (fast) beats per minute. Thus, a
total of nine musical excerpts were used. The volume at
the average frequency of each stimulus was 50 db. A piano
timbre was chosen for the stimuli. Stimuli were recorded
using Encore 4 software (gvox, Princeton, NJ, USA) for
musicians, transformed into wave format synthesized in a
recording studio for better equalization.
Ethics Statement
Human subject data presented in this article have been
acquired under an experimental protocol approved by an
Institutional Review Board of University of Burgundy
University. Written consent was obtained from each
subject.
Procedure
Results
anger
happiness
sadness
serenity
145
-3
Fast
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Moderate
Slow
-4
left
right
-5
-6
-7
Figure 2. Alpha power in left and right frontal hemisphere regions for different mode and tempi conditions.
activation. The negative numbers are a result of the log
power transform.
A Mode (3) Tempi (3) Hemisphere (2) ANOVA
with mode, tempi, and hemisphere as within-subject factors
was performed on log (EEG) alpha power. The ANOVAs
were performed separately for theta (48 Hz) and alpha
(812 Hz) bands. In the theta band no significant main
Journal of Psychophysiology 2013; Vol. 27(3):142147
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146
Discussion
In our study, emotional responses to music were measured
by means of both subjective self-reports and EEG frontal
activity. Behavioral data analysis confirmed the well-established effect of mode and tempo on the listeners emotional
responses (Gagnon & Peretz, 2003; Ramos et al., 2011;
Rigg, 1940b; Webster & Weir, 2005). The major mode
was more associated with positive emotions such as happiness and serenity than minor and locrian modes. By contrast, these modes induced stronger emotions of anger and
sadness. A new point was to compare minor and locrian
modes. Locrian is a minor mode, which induced stronger
dissonance than the minor mode. Locrian was more associated with anger than sadness by comparison to minor mode
but this difference remained small and did not reach statistical significance.
Beyond the effect of mode, tempo was found to modulate the emotional ratings, with faster tempi being more
associated with the emotions of anger and happiness as
opposed to slow tempi, which induced stronger feeling of
sadness and serenity. This suggests that the tempo modulates the arousal value of the emotions. A new point of
the study was to manipulate three values of tempi (slow,
moderate, fast). Our finding suggests that there is a linear
trend between tempo and the arousing values of the emotion: the faster the tempo, the stronger the arousal value
of the emotion. Given these main effects of mode and
tempo, it was of interest to assess their interaction. Pitch
and time have been proposed to be processed independently
at perceptual level (Peretz et al., 1998), but they may interact in a higher level determining the emotional response.
Our data provide some evidence for such interactive effects
between mode and tempo. It appears that tempo affects in
different ways happiness depending on the mode. Increases
in tempo rendered music happier when played in major
modes, and to a lesser extent in minor mode, but a reverse
tendency was found when the music was played in locrian
mode. The critical point of the study was to assess how
these effects of mode and tempi were expressed in EEG
Journal of Psychophysiology 2013; Vol. 27(3):142147
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Hogrefe Publishing
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147
Konstantinos Trochidis
Department of Psychology
Neuroscience and Behaviour
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West
Hamilton
Canada
E-mail Konstantinos.Trochidis@gmail.com