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Emotional responses to music: experience, expression, and physiology

ÖREBRO UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN, lars-olov.lundqvist{at}orebroll.se

Fredrik Carlsson

ÖREBRO UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN, fredrik.carlsson{at}city.vrg.se

Per Hilmersson

ÖREBRO UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN, per.hilmersson{at}ec.europa.eu

Patrik N. Juslin

UPPSALA UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN, patrik.juslin{at}psyk.uu.se

A crucial issue in research on music and emotion is whether music evokes genuine emotional responses in listeners (the emotivist position) or whether listeners merely perceive emotions expressed by the music (the cognitivist position). To investigate this issue, we measured self-reported emotion, facial muscle activity, and autonomic activity in 32 participants while they listened to popular music composed with either a happy or a sad emotional expression. Results revealed a coherent manifestation in the experiential, expressive, and physiological components of the emotional response system, which supports the emotivist position. Happy music generated more zygomatic facial muscle activity, greater skin conductance, lower finger temperature, more happiness and less sadness than sad music. The finding that the emotion induced in the listener was the same as the emotion expressed in the music is consistent with the notion that music may induce emotions through a process of emotional contagion.

Key Words: autonomic activity • emotion • electromyography • emotional contagion • emotional experience • facial expression • gender differences

This version was published on January 1, 2009

Psychology of Music, Vol. 37, No. 1, 61-90 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0305735607086048


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