Patrik Juslin

Uppsala University | UU · Department of Psychology

I support the music and social bonding (MSB) framework, but submit that the authors' predictions lack discriminative power, and that they do not engage sufficiently with the emotion mechanisms that mediate between musical features and social bonding. I elaborate on how various mechanisms may contribute, in unique ways, to social bonding at various...

Music is frequently regarded as a unique way to connect with dementia patients. Yet little is known about how persons with dementia respond emotionally to music. Are their responses different from those of healthy listeners? If so, why? The present study makes a first attempt to tackle these issues in a Portuguese context, with a focus on psycholog...

Emotional expression is crucial for social interaction. Yet researchers disagree about whether nonverbal expressions truly reflect felt emotions and whether they convey discrete emotions to perceivers in everyday life. In the present study, 384 clips of vocal expression recorded in a field setting were rated by the speakers themselves and by naïve...

It has been the subject of much debate in the study of vocal expression of emotions whether posed expressions (e.g., actor portrayals) are different from spontaneous expressions. In the present investigation, we assembled a new database consisting of 1877 voice clips from 23 datasets, and used it to systematically compare spontaneous and posed expr...

It has been the matter of much debate whether perceivers are able to distinguish spontaneous vocal expressions of emotion from posed vocal expressions (e.g., emotion portrayals). In this experiment, we show that such discrimination can be manifested in the autonomic arousal of listeners during implicit processing of vocal emotions. Participants (N...

Music is often used for regulating emotions in everyday life and could have both beneficial and harmful effects on emotional health. Depression is associated with impaired emotion-regulation skills, but few studies have examined whether such impairments apply to a musical context also. The aim of the present study was thus to compare depressed and...

Music is often used to alleviate depression, an affective disorder. Yet, little is known about how listeners suffering from depression respond emotionally to music. The goal of this study was to investigate whether listeners show different patterns of emotional reactions to music depending on level of depression. In previous research, depression ha...

Music listening may evoke meaningful emotions in listeners and may enhance certain health benefits. At the same time, it is important to consider individual differences, such as musical taste, when examining musical emotions and in considering their possible health effects. In a field experiment, 21 women listened to their own preferred music on mp...

Several studies have explored emotional reactions to music from a psychological perspective. However, little is still known about whether such responses are invariant across cultures. The aim of the present study was thus to investigate the prevalence of (a) emotional reactions, (b) psychological mechanisms, and (c) motives during music listening i...

Music is commonly regarded as one of the fine arts, but aesthetic responses to music are still poorly understood. In this study, we investigated aesthetic judgments of music by using the tools of judgment analysis. The aim was to shed some light on the psychological process through which listeners use a set of subjective and differentially weighted...

A common approach to studying emotional reactions to music is to attempt to obtain direct links between musical surface features such as tempo and a listener's responses. Hhowever, such an analysis ultimately fails to explain why emotions are aroused in the listener. Iin this article we explore an alternative approach, which aims to account for mus...

A common approach to study emotional reactions to music is to attempt to obtain direct links between musical surface features such as tempo and a listener's response. However, such an analysis ultimately fails to explain why emotions are aroused in the listener. If only some musical events succeed in arousing an emotion, and if different listeners...

Kalisch et al. discuss the causal process underlying stress in terms of a multidimensional goal-appraisal process, but there are several mechanisms at various levels of the brain that use different types of information to guide behavior. Depending on the mechanism, the characteristics of the process are different. Hence, both research and preventio...

Previous research has highlighted the important role of choice in listeners’ responses to music, but relatively little is known about the subjective criteria on which listeners base their choices. Hence, the goal of this study was to make a first attempt to investigate the relative importance of various criteria in listeners’ choice and aesthetic j...

The question of the precise link between music and emotions has exercised scholars since the time of ancient Greece. The goal of this chapter is to review contemporary empirical research on music and emotion primarily within music psychology. We begin by commenting on the recent history of the field. Then, we provide a working definition of emotion...

Numerous studies have investigated whether music can reliably convey emotions to listeners, and-if so-what musical parameters might carry this information. Far less attention has been devoted to the actual contents of the communicative process. The goal of this article is thus to consider what types of emotional content are possible to convey in mu...

Music may arouse intense emotions in listeners, but little is known about the circumstances that contribute to such reactions. Here we report a listening experiment that investigated the roles of selected musical, situational, and individual factors in emotional reactions to music. In a 2 x 2 factorial design, we manipulated music choice (self-chos...

A common approach to study emotional reactions to music is to attempt to obtain direct links between musical surface features such as tempo and a listener’s response. However, such an analysis ultimately fails to explain why emotions are aroused in the listener. In this article, we propose an alternative approach, which seeks to explain musical emo...

The sound of music may arouse profound emotions in listeners. But such experiences seem to involve a 'paradox', namely that music - an abstract form of art, which appears removed from our concerns in everyday life - can arouse emotions - biologically evolved reactions related to human survival. How are these (seemingly) non-commensurable phenomena...

Cross-cultural studies of music and emotion are needed to assess the generalizability of results and also have important implications for theory development. However, progress requires that the domain is broken down into smaller constituents based on key distinctions. For example, a multilevel theory of emotion-causation implies that the relative c...

This chapter presents a novel approach to music and health that focuses on exploring health benefits within everyday life contexts, with particular consideration of possible underlying mechanisms. The focus is on listening rather than performing, and on public health rather than clinical populations. A central role is attached to emotion in bringin...

Schizophrenia is associated with deficits in the ability to perceive emotion based on tone of voice. The basis for this deficit remains unclear, however, and relevant assessment batteries remain limited. The authors evaluated performance in schizophrenia on a novel voice emotion recognition battery with well-characterized physical features, relativ...

Music is commonly regarded as expressive of emotions that can be perceived by listeners. Nevertheless, the specific characteristics of this perceptual process are not well understood. This study aims to investigate the relationships between various features of musical structure and the emotions perceived by listeners, with a focus on the role of in...

Empirical studies have indicated that listeners value music primarily for its ability to arouse emotions. Yet little is known about which emotions listeners normally experience when listening to music, or about the causes of these emotions. The goal of this study was therefore to explore the prevalence of emotional reactions to music in everyday li...

Empirical studies have indicated that listeners value music primarily for its ability to arouse emotions. Yet little is known about which emotions listeners normally experience when listening to music, or about the causes of these emotions. The goal of this study was therefore to explore the prevalence of emotional reactions to music in everyday li...

Introduction: Schizophrenia patients show decreased ability to identify emotion based upon tone of voice (voice emotion recognition), along with deficits in basic auditory processing. Interrelationship among these measures is poorly understood. Methods: Forty-one patients with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder and 41 controls were asked to...

This chapter presents a research project devoted specifically to studying the underlying mechanisms responsible for induction of emotion through music listening. It describes a research strategy, a novel theoretical framework, and preliminary findings from ongoing studies that explore underlying mechanisms. It discusses the implications of this wor...

Music's ability to express and arouse emotions is a mystery that has fascinated both experts and laymen at least since ancient Greece. The predecessor to this book, Motion and Emotion (OUP, 2001) was critically and commercially successful and stimulated much further work in this area. In the years since the publication of that book, empirical resea...

Previous research has shown that a computer program may improve performers’ abilities to express emotions through their performance. Yet, performers seem reluctant to embrace this novel technology. In this study we explored possible reasons for these negative impressions. Eighty guitarists performed a piece of music to express various emotions, rec...

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...

Research indicates that people value music primarily because of the emotions it evokes. Yet, the notion of musical emotions remains controversial, and researchers have so far been unable to offer a satisfactory account of such emotions. We argue that the study of musical emotions has suffered from a neglect of underlying mechanisms. Specifically, r...

Most commentators have agreed with our thesis, that musical emotions cannot be studied without regard to underlying mechanisms. However, some commentators have expressed concerns that are addressed in this response. Others have suggested directions for future research. Topics discussed in our response include terminology, elaborations on particular...

The Experience Sampling Method was used to explore emotions to music as they naturally occurred in everyday life, with a focus on the prevalence of different musical emotions and how such emotions are related to various factors in the listener, the music, and the situation. Thirty-two college students, 20 to 31 years old, carried a palmtop that emi...

Individuals with schizophrenia show reliable deficits in the ability to recognize emotions from vocal expressions. Here, we examined emotion recognition ability in 23 schizophrenia patients relative to 17 healthy controls using a stimulus battery with well-characterized acoustic features. We further evaluated performance deficits relative to ancill...

Research has shown that both music students and teachers think that expression is important. Yet, we know little about how expression is taught to students. Such knowledge is needed in order to enhance teaching of expression. The aim of this study was thus to explore the nature of instrumental music teaching in its natural context, with a focus on...

As technology advances, the trend is always to increase the quality of recording and decrease the cost and size of equipment. The purpose of this chapter is to provide information on the best methods of securing and maintaining audiovisual data. This allows researchers the opportunity to consider the technical methods most appropriate for collectin...

Speech emotion analysis refers to the use of various methods to analyze vocal behavior as a marker of affect (e.g., emotions, moods, and stress), focusing on the nonverbal aspects of speech. The ba ...

There are several features that we have come to expect from an expert performance: technical mastery, confidence, originality, flexibility, and a true understanding of the musical style. Yet the feature that both performers and listeners appear to regard as the most important is that the performer is expressive. The most-loved artists are commonly...

This article explores the question of why music touches us so deeply. While music philosophers, musicologists, and aestheticians have written a lot about musical emotions, psychologists have been slow to catch up due to both conceptual and methodological problems. Hence, the article focuses mainly on research carried out during the last decade. The...

Young and old adults’ ability to recognize emotions from vocal expressions and music performances was compared. The stimuli consisted of (a) acted speech (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness; each posed with both weak and strong emotion intensity), (b) synthesized speech (anger, fear, happiness, and sadness), and (c) short melodies played...

CUEX is an algorithm that from recordings of solo music performances extracts the tone parameters for tempo, sound level, articulation, onset velocity, spectrum, vibrato rate, and vibrato extent. The aim is to capture the expressive variations in a music performance, rather than to identify the musical notes played. The CUEX algorithm uses a combin...

Communication of emotions is of crucial importance in music performance. Yet research has suggested that this skill is neglected in music education. This article presents and evaluates a computer program that automatically analyzes music performances and provides feedback to musicians in order to enhance their communication of emotions. Thirty-six...

Empirical studies suggest that people value music largely because of its abilities to express and induce emotions. Yet, little is known about the conditions under which listeners normally experience emotions to music in everyday life. The aim of this study was to investigate (a) the prevalence of different emotional responses to music, (b) possible...

This study explored a dimensional approach to vocal expression of emotion. Actors vocally portrayed emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness) with weak and strong emotion intensity. Listeners (30 university students and 6 speech experts) rated each portrayal on four emotion dimensions (activation, valence, potency, emotion intensity). The...

This chapter reviews theoretical concepts and empirical findings on musical emotions. First, it examines the notion of music as a means of communicating emotion and presents some relevant evidence concerning the issue. Then it provides a working definition of emotions and some conceptual distinctions for the study of musical emotion. It reviews mec...

With the advent of new technology, the most important impetus for the proliferation of studies on vocal affect expression has been the recent interest in the large-scale application of speech technology in automatic speech and speaker recognition and speech synthesis. This chapter advocates the Brunswikian lens model as a meta-structure for studies...

In this article, we provide an up-to-date overview of theory and research concerning expression, perception, and induction of emotion in music. We also provide a critique of this research, noting that previous studies have tended to neglect the social context of music listening. The most likely reason for this neglect, we argue, is that that most r...

Communication of emotion is of fundamental importance to the performance of music. However, recent research indicates that expressive aspects of performance are neglected in music education, with teachers spending more time and effort on technical aspects. Moreover, traditional strategies for teaching expressivity rarely provide informative feedbac...

Many authors have speculated about a close relationship between vocal expression of emotions and musical expression of emotions. but evidence bearing on this relationship has unfortunately been lacking. This review of 104 studies of vocal expression and 41 studies of music performance reveals similarities between the 2 channels concerning (a) the a...

The aim of this article is to outline a psychological approach to expression in music performance that could help to provide a solid foundation for the teaching of expressive skills in music education. Drawing on previous research, the author suggests that performance expression is best conceptualized as a multi-dimensional phenomenon consisting of...

Much has been written about expressivity by philosophers, composers, musicologists, and psychologists, but little is known about how the musicians of tomorrow — music students — approach this subject. This paper reports an exploratory study in which 135 students from music conservatories in three countries (England, Italy, Sweden) filled out a ques...

Expressive qualities of Western music have been discussed by philosophers, music theorists, and others ever since antiquity, and many opinions have been issued concerning what can be expressed in music. We first take a look at some of these ideas as they relate to emotion. Then, we review empirical investigations on emotional expression in music. F...

The study of musical emotion is currently witnessing a renaissance. However, the literature on music and emotion still presents a confusing picture. The conceptual terrain is still being mapped, and considerable refinement is still needed in how we study music and emotion. With all the research currently devoted to this subject, it is all the more...

Expressivity is one of the most important aspects of music performance. However, in music education, expressivity is often overlooked in favor of technical abilities. This could possibly depend on the difficulty in describing expressivity, which makes it problematic to provide the student with specific feedback. The aim of this project is to develo...

Of all the subskills that make up music performance, the ones associated with emotional communication are often viewed as the most elusive. They go right to the core of why people engage in musical behavior, either as performers or as listeners. The performance of a piece of music is crucial in shaping its emotional expression. Thus, the emotional...

Actors vocally portrayed happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust with weak and strong emotion intensity while reading brief verbal phrases aloud. The portrayals were recorded and analyzed according to 20 acoustic cues. Listeners decoded each portrayal by using forced-choice or quantitative ratings. The results showed that (a) portrayals with s...

Presents a computational model of expression in music performance: the GERM model. The purpose of the GERM model is to (1) describe the principal sources of variability in music performance, (2) emphasize the need to integrate different aspects of performance in a common model, and (3) provide some preliminaries for a computational model that simul...

Previous research has identified a set of acoustical cues that are important in communicating different emotions in music performance. We have applied these findings in the development of a system that automatically predicts the expressive intention of the player. First, low-level cues of music performances are extracted from audio. Important cues...

This study describes the utilization of acoustic cues in communication of emotions in music performance. Three professional guitarists were asked to perform 3 short melodies to communicate anger, sadness, happiness, and fear to listeners. The resulting performances were analyzed with respect to 5 acoustic cues and judged by 30 listeners on adjectiv...

Actors vocally portrayed happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust with weak and strong emotion intensity while reading brief verbal phrases aloud. The portrayals were recorded and analyzed according to 20 acoustic cues. 15 listeners (7 men and 8 women, aged 19-44 yrs) decoded each portrayal by using forced-choice or quantitative ratings. The re...

Book Description The position of emotion in music has been a subject of considerable interest and debate. However emotional aspects of music have received surprising little attention in the 45 years since the publication of Leonard Meyer's classic work 'Emotion and meaning in music.' During that time, both 'music psychology' and 'emotion' have deve...

This study investigates whether cognitive feedback (CFB) can improve the expressive skills of music performers. CFB involves providing performers with information about how their use of cues in the performance compares to an optimal model for emotional communication based on listeners' judgments. Eight guitar players were asked to perform short pie...

The purpose of this study was to explore whether listeners can use timing patterns to decode the intended emotional expression of musical performances. We gradually removed different acoustic cues (tempo, dynamics, timing, articulation) from piano performances rendered with various intended expressions (anger, sadness, happiness, fear) to see how s...

Recent studies of music performance have shown that systematic variations in tempo, sound level, articulation, and timbre may be used by the performer to communicate representations of specific emotions to listeners. However, although performance analyses show that performers use certain cues to communicate emotions, they cannot explain how listene...

Recent studies have suggested that performers are able to communicate emotions to listeners through their performances of a piece of music. However, in all these studies listeners made their judgments by means of forced choice or ratings, methods which offer only a limited number of response options. The question arises whether successful communica...

The first part of this paper presents a systematic application of a functionalist perspective to the study of emotional communication in music performance. This involves the integration of ideas and concepts from psychological research on emotion and nonverbal communication with Brunswik's (1956) probabilistic functionalism and a modified version o...

Nine professional musicians were instructed to perform short melodies using various instruments - the violin, electric guitar, flute, and singing voice - so as to communicate specific emotional characters to listeners. The performances were first validated by having listeners rating the emotional expression and then analysed with regard to their ph...

This chapter reviews research on communication of emotion in music performance, outlines a theoretical framework suitable for organizing the findings, and considers some implications for future research on music performance. Also discussed are the role of the performer in interpreting a given musical composition, the standard paradigm of emotional...