Emotion in Music
Adam Boulanger, Graham Grindlay, and Nick Knouf
There is near universal agreement amongst philosophers, cognitive scientists, performers, and the listening public as to the power of music to induce various emotional responses. Specifically, recent fMRI and behavioural studies have begun to elucidate the nature of this process.
One difficulty in understanding these emotional responses is the nature of the thing we are studying: humans have a notoriously difficult time expressing linguistically their specific emotional experiences. An even greater challenge is the description as a result of a non-linguistic activity, such as music. So we must ask the question: in what ways can we get accurate and meaningful descriptions of said experience given the arduousness of the problem?
Our tactics, in the nascent stages of their development, involve considering two tracks: one, asking listeners to select a large subset of emotional descriptors from a list of evocative words, assigning a strength, and then, as the experimentor, using machine learning techniques to discover patterns in the responses; and second, considering orthogonal tasks or actions for the listener to perform, where the induced emotional response will affect the development or outcome of the action.
Current Directions in Music, Mind, and Health:
A focus on Alzheimer's DiseaseA focus on Autism
A focus on Emotion
A focus on Performance
Selected Projects in Music, Mind and Health: