Review: “Current emotion research in music psychology”

各位留学生大家好！今天100due教员组给大家分享的是一篇心理学essay代写范文，主要内容是讲：斯瓦米纳坦（Swaminathan）和舍伦伯格（Schellenberg）于2015年在《情感评论》（emotion Review）上发表的《音乐心理学中的当前情感研究》是一篇科学期刊文章，通过情感和交流确立了音乐与心理学之间的关联。作者回顾了自2000年以来发表的相关文章，同时试图解决论文的三个主要目标。首先，建立了音乐与情感的联系。音乐的情感特征被认为是所有文化的普遍特征。来自不同文化背景的听众可以很容易地识别外国音乐作品中的情感元素，如快乐、悲伤和恐惧。不同的文化也有不同于其他文化的音乐结构（Swaminathan&Schellenberg，2015）。其次，作者区分了理解一段音乐与产生对它的情感反应之间的区别。从以前的研究中可以看出，不同的人对音乐有不同的反应方式，这决定了他们听音乐的习惯。听音乐时没有压力是所有听众的共同点。然后对音乐诱发情绪的机制进行了研究，但对于认知评价是否与这一过程有关，目前还没有得出结论。第三部分探讨了音乐偏好与情绪反应水平之间的关系。最后，作者得出结论，音乐和心理学通过情感的产生而紧密相连。这一过程在很大程度上还受到听众心理状况和音乐偏好的影响。

Review: “Current emotion research in music psychology”

“Current emotion research in music psychology” by Swaminathan and Schellenberg, published in Emotion Review in 2015, is a scientific journal article that establishes the correlation between music and psychology through emotion and communication. The authors have reviewed relevant articles published since 2000, while trying to resolve the three main objectives of the paper. Firstly, the link between music and emotion is established. The emotional feature of music is believed to be universal to all cultures. Listeners from a different culture can easily identify the emotional elements in a foreign music piece, such as happiness, sadness and fear. Different cultures also have different structures of music that are distinctive from other cultures (Swaminathan & Schellenberg, 2015). Secondly, the authors distinguish the difference between understanding a piece of music from generation of an emotional response to it. From the previous research, it is observed that different people have different ways of responding to music, which determines their habit of music listening. It is common of all the listeners that they are stress-free listening to music. The mechanism of emotion induction by music is then examined, but no conclusion has been reached regarding whether cognitive appraisals is associated with the process or not. In the third section of the paper, the relationship between music preference and the level of emotional response is explored. Finally, the authors conclude that music and psychology are deeply connected through generation of emotions. The process is also largely influenced by the psychological condition and music preferences of listeners.

From the beginning of the article, the correlation between humans and music is exemplified by the citation of a research by Nakata and Trehub (2004). Humans have a deep connection with music even in the infant age. Music cues used in the communication with infants proved to be even more effective than language. Thus, there is no doubt that music should be considered an essential part of being human. The correlation is also drawn between music and language. Indeed, the essential elements of music, such as volume and tone, is also important for speech. When one is angry, he tends to speak in a higher tone, volume and more rapidly. In general, the characteristics of music can be categorized by the emotional responses they generate. Anger, fear and happiness, which are high-arousal emotions, are expressed with faster rhythms compared to low-arousal emotions, such as sadness and affection. Other characteristics like pitch intervals and pitch height can also be the determining factor of the type of emotions they arouse. These descriptions of music form the skeleton of the definition of “art” in this paper. Basically, the authors believe that elements of rhythms, pitches and intervals, and the combination of them, are the original form of music as an art. Humans have developed the ability to hear music, which then evolved into deeper levels of interpretation and appreciation. The development of art and psychology is thus synced.

In terms of psychology, there is little mention of complex psychological theories in the article. Instead, the core of music psychology becomes emotions, which is both a core feature of music and psychology. There are different ways emotions are categorized by the authors as well. Firstly, different music types and characteristic result in different emotions, as mentioned above. There are also the intrinsically generated emotions, when young children listen to music cues. Study has shown that even at the age of five, children are able to perceive the emotional implication of a piece of music (Dalla Bella, Peretz, Rousseau, & Gosselin, 2001). This finding suggests that music and humans are internally related through emotions, without the environmental influence and nurturing. Extrinsically, culture also has a significant influence on music. Although music is composed of similar elements all over the world, different cultures have different ways of assembling the musical elements. The differences are largely dependent on the cultural contexts. The nurturing through social and cultural values are found equally important as intrinsic features, in the way emotions are generated when people listen to music. Therefore, when music is used to express more delicate feelings, such as peacefulness, an outsider may have difficulty identifying the emotion, since they have never been exposed to the social context of the music. through years of exposure and learning, one is finally completely immersed in the music culture he or she belongs to. Such an experience is crucial for individuals to cultivate the ability to give different emotional response to music.

Building on the human nature and nurturing of the environment, the correlation between art (music) and psychology is further based on the individual preferences. Thus, there is the difference between perceived music and felt music, and their corresponding emotions. This explains why some people feel sad listening to a piece of music that are not commonly perceived so. In addition to increasing emotional arousal, music is also effective in reducing such arousals. People tend to be “absorbed” into the music when listening, putting aside other thoughts in mind, which is effective in reducing the amount of stress they have (Sandstrom & Russo, 2013). The importance of nurturing is shown once again, as musicians tend to be more responsive than others hearing the same music. When it comes to how emotions are aroused by music, several theories have been proposed by scientists. Cognitive appraisals are believed to be a common way. However, there are also simpler mechanisms, such as automatic mirroring by the mirror-neuron system, automatic brain-stem reflexes, evaluative conditioning, emotional contagion, visual imagery association, memory association, and violation/fulfillment of musical expectations (Swaminathan & Schellenberg, 2015). Despite the numerous hypotheses, the way human brain works in reaction to music remains a mystery. Overall, the emotional responses to music is revealed in nine dimensions, which are: wonder, transcendence, nostalgia, tenderness, peacefulness, joyful activation, tension, sadness, and power (Swaminathan & Schellenberg, 2015). These dimensions are not independent from each, as music is able to induce more than one emotion for the listener at the same time. One problem with self-reports of listeners is that they tend to confuse perceived emotions with felt or experienced emotions. However, psychologists are becoming more experienced in distinguishing between the two.

Although humans created music as a form of art, the development of humans is inseparable from music as well. The nature of music is similar to language when it was originally created, which is the need for humans to express themselves. It then became the unique functionality of music to influence the mood of people and generate emotional responses from them. Overall, the three important features of music, according to the authors of the article, are musical elements, social and cultural conditions, as well as personal experiences and preferences. On the psychological side, emotions can be categorized in multiple ways, which all fall into the nine dimensions discussed above. The association between music and psychology is thus established in three ways: the intrinsic nature of music that is imprinted in the linguistic abilities of human being, the extension of the self into the larger social and cultural contexts, and the specific needs and experiences of individuals that determine their emotional responses to music. Each of the three ways are important in determining how psychological activities are correlated with music.

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